The following are lessons from Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi's "Flow", an award winning book and national bestseller.  While first published in 1990, the lessons are still very applicable today.

Flow is the state in which someone is so involved in an activity that nothing else matters.

According to Mihaly, flow requires a number of ingredients: 

1.  A challenging activity that requires skills.

Flow requires tasks where we must push ourselves, stretch our limits, and grow in complexity.  Enjoyment comes at a very specific point -- when the opportunities of the game are matched by the person's capabilities.  The player is not bored or too anxious.  As the tasks grows, the player grows.  As the stakes are raised, we develop the skills necessary to compete.

2.  Merger of action and awareness.

All attention is focused on relevant stimuli.  Consciousness is not diluted or distracted by other concerns.   

The natural state of the mind is chaos.  It takes training to be able to keep order.  (Please see the sections on concentration and mediation on ways to increase focus.)

Each person allocates their limited attention either by focusing it internationally like a laser beam, or letting it diffuse by random events.  Consciousness has limits.  There are only so many 'events' that we can process before the system gets overloaded and instructions from the brain get jumbled.  While decisions and judgments come at fractions of a second, they do take place in real time. Seeing, comparing, evaluating, deciding -- all take time and processing space. 

Emotions often muck with this consciousness.  Pain, fear, anxiety, or jealously divert attention to undesirable objects, leaving us no longer free to use it according to our preferences.  The basic pattern is always the same; some information that conflicts with an individual's goals appears in the consciousness.  Depending  on how central that goal is to the self and how severe the threat is to the ego, some amount of attention will have to be mobilized to eliminate the danger.  

When information comes into awareness that is congruent with goals, flow is effortless. These are situations in which attention can be freely invested to achieve a person's goals because there is not disorder to straighten out, not threat for the self to defend against  

3.  The task has clear goals and rules, and the player gets constant feedback and can measure progress.  

Such knowledge creates order in one's consciousness.   

4.  Players must be able to concentrate, making finer and finer distinctions in the challenge involved.  

You've seen wine tasters.  They swirl.  They spit.  They seems to taste and smell things that we didn't pick up, and they receive much enjoyment from it. You must develop the sophistication of your position to the level of a fine sommelier. 

5.  We must have some control over the situation, be able to influence it and shape it with our skill.

This is especially true in high-adrenaline sports.  The thrill comes less from the danger of the activity but from the individual's ability to minimize it.  What people enjoy is not being in control, but exercising control.   

Control must also be exercised in thoughts.  We all know individuals who can transform hopeless situations into victories, just through the force of their personality.  This ability to persevere is a quality we most admire in others.  To develop this trait, one must find ways to order consciousness as to be in control of feelings and thoughts 

6.  Self-consciousness disappears. 

In flow, there is no room for self-scrutiny.  Flow is an egoless thing.  What slips below the surface is not a loss of self or a loss of consciousness, but a loss of the concept of self -- of self-consciousness.    

Egotistical individuals who are mainly concerned with protecting themselves fall apart when external conditions become threatening.  The ensuing panic prevents them from doing what needs to be done.   

Ideally, information would enter without having a positive or negative affiliation attached to it. It is the self that interprets the raw information and determines whether it is harmful or not.  

What does a peak performance athlete have that creates flow?

• Unconscious self-assurance -- an implicit belief in their own abilities to handle the task at hand.
• Outward attention -- laser beam focus on the task without external or internal distractions.
• Discovery of new solutions -- focusing not on the obstacles, but on the solution
• Goal setting -- not just wins for the team, but for him or herself.
• Immersed in the activity -- No distractions, external or internal. 
• Learning to enjoy the immediate experience -- no dwelling on the past or worrying about the future.
• Finding purpose -- what they do matters.  To do this, they must know themselves and what matters to them.  They have free choice to do what they're doing, and continue to choose to do it.  

What does this mean if you're a coach?

• Coaches don't talk about it, and players don't admit it, but you must strengthen your players against negative emotions that sap a player's conscious energy.  Those things include pain, fear, anxiety, or stress.  You will need to use the exercises on this website to strength the core self of the players.  You may also need to get to know your players well enough to know what is problematic in their lives.  
• Don't just practice skills that players are already good at, but practice new skills to help the player to grow and handle more situations.  If a player doesn't have the necessary skills, the situation will produce anxiety which will break flow.
•  Be careful what you say to players.  Needless yelling and insults will threaten the player's ego, taking their limited attention away from the task at hand.
• With the players' input, set goals for each individual. These goals should be hard, but not too hard, and you should have a way to measure progress.  Create constant and clear feedback mechanisms for you players.
• Care for your players.  Let them know that what they do matters to you and your teammates.
• Ask players offline if they need additional help on skill development. Many times in practice, they'll say they get a concept, play, or drill, but are just afraid to speak up in front of others to admit their lack of understanding, fear of accomplishing the task, or inability.   Give them a forum to voice their fears and concers without public humiliation.  

What does this mean if you're a player? 

• Set goals for yourself that force you to grow and stretch out of your comfort level.
• Develop a quiet mind so that when negative thoughts enter your mind that would normally distract you, you are able to unemotionally observe them, let them pass, and refocus on the task at hand.
• Learn to develop unshakable self-confidence.
• Develop selective amnesia, and a good sense of forgiveness.  Like a kicker who forgets his last miss, also learn to forgive your mistakes and move on.  
• Up your game.  Think your good?  Now develop the finer points of the game.  How do you know where and when a receiver breaks?  What are the nuances of a good block?  How do you read the defense before the snap?