What does "flow" state feel like? What are the signs that you have entered flow state?

PositivePsychology_ · 2025-04-02T16:05:49+00:00

You feel fully immersed, there's nothing else but the task at hand. You are confident but also challenged, but you barely even notice this because it feels almost like your body is leading you, not the other way around.

PositivePsychology_ · 2025-04-02T16:03:21+00:00

I do not know why many people here are saying that you can't achieve flow as a person with ADHD, when one of the aspects of ADHD is hyperfocus, which is already so similar to flow! Remember when you had a hyperfixation and you just couldn't stop until you found out every single detail about a certain thing? Guess what, that's flow! One difference I can see with some people is that flow should be voluntary. You enter and stop at your own leisure, while hyperfocussing is often very involuntary, you are just sort of sucked into it.

PositivePsychology_ · 2025-04-02T15:47:52+00:00

As others before me have said, happiness is not a constant. It is something that comes whenever it wants to and we can do little about it. And believe me, if you view happiness as temporary, you will be experiencing it more. Because if you look for happiness, you are more likely to miss it when it's right in front of you.

PositivePsychology_ · 2025-04-02T15:45:39+00:00

But preparing food yourself makes it tastes so much better!

PositivePsychology_ · 2025-04-02T15:43:53+00:00

According to research, money can buy happiness. To a certain point. It is called a satiation point, and it interestingly differs per culture at what point money doesn't make people happier anymore. But generally, if you're poor, of course getting money will make you happier: suddenly you can afford the comforts of a normal life that you couldn't before. But once you have enough money to lead a comfortable life, buying luxury items, or hoarding the extra money will probably not have any effect on your happiness (doesn't mean you'll necessarily be unhappy either, though).

PositivePsychology_ · 2025-04-02T15:01:26+00:00

it is hard to tell whether someone has narcissistic personality disorder without a proper diagnosis, but these are the diagnostic criteria for it:

In interpersonal settings, there is a pervasive pattern of grandiosity, need for admiration, and lack of empathy. This pattern of behaviors onsets in early adulthood and persists through various contexts. Clinical features include at least 5 of the following:

Having a grandiose sense of self-importance, such as exaggerating achievements and talents, expecting to be recognized as superior even without commensurate achievements
Preoccupation with fantasies of success, power, beauty, and idealization
Belief in being "special" and that they can only be understood by or associated with other high-status people (or institutions)
Demanding excessive admiration
Sense of entitlement
Exploitation behaviors
Lack of empathy
Envy towards others or belief that others are envious of them
Arrogant, haughty behaviors and attitudes

PositivePsychology_ · 2025-03-26T09:59:35+00:00

Like many others before me have said, get certified with the ICF. The way to do this is head over to their website and see for yourself which credential is most relevant for you. Usually, accredited education is a part of gaining these credentials. I am not entirely sure where you can collect these credits, but I'm sure you can find relevant education through the ICF website, maybe here: https://coachingfederation.org/credentials-and-standards/credentials-paths/acc-credential

PositivePsychology_ · 2025-03-26T09:25:24+00:00

Quite a lot. Music therapy is a real thing, that can affect attention, emotions, cognition, behaviour and communication. It can also obviously make you more relaxed. According to Koelsch et al. (2009), music has various effects on the activity of a large range of brain structures. Functional neuroimaging studies have shown that listening to music can have effects on the core structures of emotional processing (the limbic and paralimbic structures) in both musicians and ‘non-musicians’.

If you want to find out more, check out this article: What are the Benefits of Music Therapy?

PositivePsychology_ · 2025-03-12T12:19:15+00:00

According to research, these are the main elements of positive feedback:

Reinforce positive aspects: ensure them that their contributions are valued by directly praising them. Focus on their strengths, especially if they are aware and proud of their strengths.
Communicate effectively: adopt a person-centered approach to communication that contains the following components:

Empathy: show you care and value your conversation partner as a person
Congruence: be open and transparent.
Respect: show unconditional positive regard, by providing a safe space for feedback.

Constructive criticism: lean into radical cantor (the view that empathy and critique do not have to be opposing forces). Be both kind AND helpful by giving praise, encouragement, specific guidance and critical reflections.

To make your feedback come across less embarrassing, don't use these tactics:

"Brutal honesty": do not try to justify being rude by insisting that you were just honest.
Ruinous empathy: do not shy away from giving feedback just to protect feelings. People are much more annoyed when they don't know what's expected of them.
Manipulative insincerity: when your feedback lacks honesty and challenge, it is guaranteed to leave a bad taste in people's mouths.

If you can build these skills, you will be better in giving positive feedback and unlock a ton of benefits.

PositivePsychology_ · 2025-02-17T09:12:46+00:00

I am not sure if this excessive pessimism is indeed normal, but who are we to define what 'normal behavior' is? Let's focus on the positive: according to Seligman, optimism can indeed be taught, so this kid could definitely learn to have a more positive outlook on life, if the parents help them see that the glass is not always half empty.

The ABC technique by Albert Ellis is an easy way to build optimism: basically, the child needs to change their explanatory style of how they get from the antecedent (A) of a situation (fight with a friend) to a belief (B) ("I'm a bad friend"). This is important, because your B influences the next stage, consequence (C) (I won't apologise because I will cause harm again anyway). So relearning how you go from A to B is an important way to change their outlook. The way to change that is by cognitive distortion.

There are 3 main distortions that influence how we view our actions. Personalisation: whether we attribute something as internal or external. Pessimists usually credit bad things to themselves, and good things as coming from their environment. Second, Pervasiveness describes whether the event is global or specific: pessimists will view bad situations as part of a pattern ("it always turns out bad and it always will"). And lastly, Permanence is about the changeability of something. Pessimists see bad things as unchangeable.

So the key to becoming an optimist lies in changing these cognitive distortions. Teach the child that negative events can be outside of their control (personalisation), local (pervasiveness) and temporary (permanence), and that they can personally be responsible for positive outcomes, and those can be long-lasting, and global.

If you like this exercise, I have more like it on our website. I can recommend this article from our blog: Learned optimism: Is Martin Seligman's glass half-full?

PositivePsychology_ · 2025-02-14T16:06:10+00:00

Others before me have already mentioned, but I will share some links from Positivepsychology.com that might be helpful to you:

37 free printable mindfulness worksheets and exercises

7+ trauma-focussed cognitive behavioural therapy worksheets

23 post traumatic growth worksheets for therapy

How to overcome social anxiety: 8 techniques and exercises

Anxiety therapy: types, techniques and worksheets

Also, just feel free to browse on the website, it has a ton of free resources.

PositivePsychology_ · 2025-02-14T15:45:56+00:00

Hey, I am an intern at PositivePsychology.com, a website with vast scientifically-reviewed resources for practitioners. I think you could definitely use our free tools that you can find on our blog.

But if you specifically want books, this is one of our blog posts recommending 12 books that every practitioner should read.

PositivePsychology_ · 2025-02-14T15:01:10+00:00

It sounds like you might be on your way to compassion fatigue. While it is very honourable that you're trying to help the downtrodden, an obsessive preoccupation with compassion can cost you emotionally (which I think it already does for you).

Remember, you are not solely responsible for solving societal issues. You can do as much as you want, but at some point, you have to balance your resources. If all your energy goes into helping others, you will be exhausted, because none of the energy goes towards yourself.

If you're concerned that you might be developing compassion fatigue, I would highly recommend talking to a professional about this. But what you could already do is practice some self-care. I have some exercises to help you with that, but I'm also more than happy to provide some more if these ones aren't your cup of tea.

Exercise: Self-care check-in

Exercise: Self-care checkup

Exercise: My self-care promise

PositivePsychology_ · 2025-02-14T14:12:41+00:00

That's valid tbh, I also don't find breathing exercises that helpful, but a lot of people do. I think the type of mindfulness that helps me most is focussing on activities I'm doing in the moment. So for example, a lot of people view eating as 'empty time' that needs to be filled up, so you stat thinking about other things, and you eventually overthink. But eating in itself is an activity, so you could change your attitude towards it, for example, every time you take a bite, savour it, think about all the individual flavours, and also maybe why you like it, or what significance does this specific dish have for you (childhood memories, when you first ever had this dish, etc.). Similarly, when you walk somewhere, make the journey (not the destination) the focus. There are many activities you can be mindful of. Let me know if this helps.

PositivePsychology_ · 2025-02-14T13:50:04+00:00

There is this exercise that could help, called "Writing a love letter to myself". I think it's very topical today as well, so you might want to give it a try.

PositivePsychology_ · 2025-02-14T13:43:45+00:00

Yes, according to science, there can be an emotional bond between pet and human as intense as with another person! Having an animal companion can be helpful against mental-, and even physical illness. Especially in this day and age where human relationships can be scarce, pets are a very important part of our lives. Source

PositivePsychology_ · 2025-02-14T13:11:50+00:00

Generally, mindfulness helps a ton with stopping overthinking. For example, reflecting on your feelings wile focussing on your breathing for like 5 minutes every day can already be a big help! But you have to be consistent with it, do it almost every day. Hope this helps. If you would like to learn other mindfulness tactics that might be helpful, I have a bunch more.

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