#42 Blog: You can't force flow. You can set the course for it.

My 9-year-old ran his first cross-country race of the season in 90-degree heat.

After the finish, he had three things to report:
- "I couldn't breathe; I was running so fast."
- "I placed 9th."
- "I made new friends."

Then came the line I haven't stopped thinking about:

"When I'm in the flow running, it feels so good; I can feel nature."

Nobody could fix the weather that day. But the course was built for kids his age. It's hard enough to be real, still within reach. So he found flow in conditions that should have taken it away.

Here's what Csikszentmihalyi's research tells us: flow lives in a narrow band where the challenge is real and your skill is just enough to meet it. Too hard brings anxiety. Too easy brings boredom. Add clear goals and immediate feedback, and you've set the conditions.

And here's what surprised me most: flow is contagious. His brother Aiden wasn't racing. He still moved faster than I've ever seen him move, just to cheer Owen on.

Researchers have seen this in classrooms too. Teachers in flow influence the students around them. Students in flow influence each other.

We can't hand anyone flow. Not our kids, not our students, not the adults we lead.

But we can set the course.

Try this with one lesson, PLC, or meeting this week:

1. Does everyone know what "done" looks like?
2. Will they know how it's going before the end?
3. Is it a stretch they can reach?

Fix the weakest of the three. That's it.

Show Notes:

¹ Arnold B. Bakker, “Flow among music teachers and their students: The crossover of peak experiences,” Journal of Vocational Behavior 66(1), 2005, 26–44.

² Culbertson et al., “Contagious Flow: Antecedents and Consequences of Optimal Experience in the Classroom,” Journal of Management Education 39(3), 2015, 319–349.

³ Delaware Department of Education, Delaware Early Literacy Playbook, November 2025, “Critical Moves: Early Literacy Practices in Delaware Schools,” p. 12.

⁴ Same Playbook, foundational skills instruction attributes (explicit instruction, aligned practice “in and out of context,” frequent formal and informal assessment), p. 9.