Becoming Autotelic: The Part About the Flow State that No One Talks About
As I was growing up in the evangelical Christian community, my Sunday school teachers taught me about a dude named Eric Liddell, a famous athlete who gave up an Olympic career to become a missionary.
Eric Liddell was the 400m gold medalist in the 1924 Paris Olympics, despite giving up a chance for 100m gold because he refused to race on Sundays. After the Olympics he declined to defend his title, opting instead to work as a missionary in China where Japanese soldiers arrested him and put him in a World War II prison camp.
Flow author Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi calls people like Eric autotelic. From the Greek words autos (“self”) and telos (“goal”), Mihaly defines an autotelic person as,
“A self that has self-contained goals, one that easily translates potential threats into enjoyable challenges, and therefore maintains its inner harmony.
Being autotelic (or a devout Christian) did not give Eric an overall fun life. He suffered under the ire of the British people, the subhuman conditions of a Japanese internment camp, and eventually, from the brain tumor that took his life a few weeks before Allied liberation. But it did make the 43 years of his life on earth joyful, satisfying, and a memorable blessing for everyone he touched.
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In this essay, I use Eric’s story to dig into what it means to be autotelic and how we can identify and train ourselves to live a life of flow.
What does it mean to be autotelic?
Autotelics have an internal locus of control. They don't spend time fretting about possibilities outside of their control. At the same time, they have accepted the realities of their environment and are actively working towards improving them.
Like I mentioned earlier, Eric wasn’t supposed to compete in the 400m in Paris. In fact, he was the favourite to win Olympic gold for Britain in the 100m dash, but the problem was, it fell on a Sunday. And his Christian values and convictions meant he never raced on Sunday.
When this announcement became public, chaos erupted. The media lampooned him. Some of his teammates shunned him. The British government tried to force him to change his mind. Eric went from being one of Britain’s most beloved athletes to being the most scorned.
Almost 100 years later, even with the knowledge that Eric went on to win the 400m, this still sounds preposterous to me. It’s like Andre De Grasse choosing to give up a medal for Canada in Tokyo 2020 because his best event fell on a Sunday, and then choosing instead to run the 400m, an event he never even trained for.
But no pressure from the British crown, Eric’s family and friends, or the media could dissuade him from his personal convictions. Eric stuck to his principles and valued his personal victory over the public one. He said,
“No man who really is a man ever cared for the easy task. There is no enjoyment in the game that is easily won. It is that in which you have to strain every muscle and sinew to achieve victory that provides real joy.”
Even with fierce personal convictions, though, autotelics aren’t social hermits or aloof hippies. When faced with fear, uncertainty, and doubt, autotelics get out of their heads and into others’ lives.
After his Olympic victory, news of the impending World War reached Eric in China. Ever the determined, self-directed autotelic, Eric chose to stay and continue his missionary work, rather than join his family safely in Canada.
Anchored by his faith, Eric loved to say that, “Half the things we worry about never happen.” But in March 1943, that faith and his autotelic personality were tested when the Japanese rounded him up along with other civilians, and sent them to a “Civilian Assembly Center” — an internment camp in Shangdong province.
Here sh*t really hit the fan for him. But he never wavered.
At the camp, instead of grumbling, hoarding what he had, and just getting by, “Uncle” Eric tutored the children. He gave away his beloved racing spikes to keep another man’s feet warm. He gave everything to keep the camp’s spirits up, including running races on sports days even as his malnourished body kept him from winning the last race of his life.
Eric attributes his unwavering cheerfulness and faith to his non-negotiable, daily prayer hour — a habit he kept up even in prison — which he likened to as washing “the dust” from his eyes.
In an interview, Eric’s wife Florence called his prayer hour “the mainspring of his life,” and when asked what she thought set her husband apart from everyone else, she answered, “He was so understanding of other people. He always seemed to be able to put himself in the shoes of somebody else.”
For me, it’s this ability to live in the paradox of solitude and social service that makes becoming autotelic so attractive — and so challenging.
As an introvert and a writer, I’m great at staying engaged in my own little world. But when faced with my own fears, I tend to tunnel inwards and try to figure things out myself.
In 2020, I promised myself to use the suffocating cabin fever of the pandemic to become more autotelic. I consciously shifted from binge watching Korean dramas by myself to finishing The Pirates of the Caribbean movies and all 18 Marvel movies with my parents. I disabled Instagram and traded its weak ties, light touches, and energy drains for Spikeball outdoors with friends after work. Instead of being a barrier between myself and others, I used fear, uncertainty, and doubt as a reminder to plug into the people around me.
Becoming autotelic: When the flow state isn’t enough
The lesson from my Sunday school teachers always sounded to me like, “Be like Eric, sacrifice all the fun stuff you enjoy, be a missionary, and God will bless you.” I always thought,
“Well easy for him not to race on Sundays. God helped him win gold anyway. And after that, he could be a missionary and live happily ever after because he accomplished cool stuff.”
“Sucks that God would make me give up the stuff I like and I’m good at.”
To put icing on the cake, reading his story as an adult made me realize that my teachers had conveniently left out the part where his convictions perfectly positioned him to become a prisoner of war.
Net-net from my perspective, Eric was a really good dude and Christian. But his life kinda sucked. This stands in contrast to the life that modern Christian leaders sell, claiming God wants to give converts “their best life now”. Even the Jesus that Eric loved so much never promised His followers a life of ease or riches, but one of struggle, sacrifice, and ultimately, meaning.
This is what being autotelic (and side note, being Christian) is all about.
Autotelics are powerful because they don’t expect a problem-free life. They commit to working with what they have. Csikszentmihalyi identifies autotelics as having “the ability to create flow experiences even in the most barren environment.” Autotelics don’t expect flow, butt-in-seat in front of their computer; they actively seek out and create flow states in their lives by self-inquiry and selfless service.
In his biography of Liddell, For the Glory, author Duncan Hamilton concluded,
“Whatever else he would surely have achieved as an athlete was trivial beside what he went on to achieve as a missionary, forever combining public service and private sacrifice.”
Christian or not, you and I can agree that we need more autotelic people in the world, now more than ever. And doing the hard work of becoming one is one of the best gifts we can give ourselves and others.