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The 4 Unique States of Mind That Lead to Creative Flow

The fascinating psychology of creatives

Jean-marc Buchert
6 min readSep 9, 2020
Photo by Svetlana Pochatun on Unsplash

When psychologist Csikszentmihalyi invented the concept of flow as an optimal experience, he described it as a complex and intricate process.

Individuals in flow find themselves in a tension between their action and their goals, a tension just elastic enough to motivate them in their work.

This same singularity defines creative people, as they swing between opposing personality traits.

According to Scott Barry Kaufman and Carolyn Gregoire in Wired to Create, there are no single psychological factors that explain creativity, resulting from diverse and contradictory profiles.

An exhaustive description of creative people shows singular behaviors synthesizing human emotions and personalities in a reliable making process.

Varied attitudes such as both serious and playful behaviors, mental wandering combined with focused work, intuitive but also rationally based thinking, solitude-seeking behaviors while finding inspiration in others, are the sign of high-creativity.

Here’s how by drawing inspiration from these 4 attitudes you can also reach creative flow.

Being Both Playful and Serious

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