"It is when we act freely, for the sake of the action itself rather than for ulterior motives, that we learn to become more than what we were."— Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, Hungarian psychologist. Have you ever gotten into a project so deeply and focused on it so intently, that you looked up to discover several hours had passed? You accomplished a great deal, and the time seemed to fairly fly by. We even have sayings about this phenomenon: "Time flies when you're having fun," and "I'm on a roll." But psychologists don't take such occurrences lightly. They've put a lot of time and effort into studying this occurrence and have a name for it: "the state of flow." When you achieve a state of flow, skill merges with practice and preparation in an almost magical way. (<---Click to Tweet) … [Read more...]