Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
(Here’s a trick to remember his name:
“Me high-----Cheeks send me high!”)
(Here’s a trick to remember his name:
“Me high-----Cheeks send me high!”)
“The best moments in our lives are not the passive, receptive, relaxing times… The best moments usually occur if a person’s body or mind is stretched to its limits in a voluntary effort to accomplish something difficult and worthwhile.”
– Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
(Here’s a fun trick to remember his name: “Me high? Cheeks send me high!”)
Do you remember that moment when creativity and productivity sprung from your mind smoothly? According to positive psychology cofounder Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, this state is called flow, and it is an important contributor to creativity and well-being.
This article contains:
The Positive Psychology toolkit is a science-based, online platform containing 135+ exercises, activities, interventions, questionnaires, assessments and scales.
The experience of flow is universal and it has been reported to occur across different classes, genders, ages, cultures and it can be experienced in many types of activities.
If you’ve ever heard someone describe a time when their performance excelled and they used the term being “in the zone”, what they’re describing is an experience of flow. It occurs when your skill level and the challenge at hand are equal.
Here’s a short video with a great explanation of Flow:
Who is Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi?From his own adverse experiences as a prisoner during World War II and from witnessing the pain and suffering from many people around him during this time, he developed a curiosity about happiness and being content with life.
He observed how many people were unable to live a life of contentment after their jobs, homes, security, etc, were taken from them during the war. After the war he read philosophy and took an interest in art and religion as a means to seek an answer to the question, what creates a life worth living?
Eventually he stumbled upon psychology whilst at a ski resort in Switzerland. He attended a lecture by Carl Jung, who talked about the traumatized psyches of the European people after World War II. He was so intrigued that he started to read Jung’s work, and eventually took an interest in psychology. Which in turn led him to the United States to pursue psychology. What he really wanted was to study the roots of happiness.
Finding Out What Happiness Really IsHis studies led him to conclude that happiness is an internal state of being, not an external one. His popular book, Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience (Amazon) is based on the premise that happiness levels can be shifted through the introduction of more flow.
Happiness is not a rigid state that can’t be changed. On the contrary, happiness takes a committed effort to be manifested. After the baseline set point, there is a percentage of happiness that every individual has the responsibility to take control of. He believes that flow is crucial to creating genuine happiness.
“Happiness takes a committed effort to be manifested.”
Through much research he began to understand that people were most creative, productive, and often, happiest when they are in this state of flow. He interviewed athletes, musicians, artists, etc. because he wanted to know when they experienced the most optimal performance levels.
He was also interested in finding out how they felt during these experiences. He developed the term flow state because many of the people he interviewed described their optimal states of performance as instances when their work simply flowed out of them without much effort.
He aimed to discover what piqued creativity, especially in the workplace, and how creativity lead to more productivity. He also determined that flow is not only essential to a productive employee but it is imperative for a contented one as well. In his own words, flow is:
“A state in which people are so involved in an activity that nothing else seems to matter; the experience is so enjoyable that people will continue to do it even at great cost, for the sheer sake of doing it.”
– Csikszentmihalyi, 1990
Here are some of the characteristics that comprise Csikszentmihalyi’s definition of optimal flow performance.
The 8 Characteristics of FlowCsikszentmihalyi describes 8 characteristics of flow:
Who Experiences Flow?Interestingly, a capacity to experience flow can differ from person to person. Studies suggest that those with ‘’autotelic personalities’’ tend to experience more flow.
A person with an ‘’autotelic personality’’ tends to do things for their own sake rather than chasing some distant external goal. This type of personality is distinguished by certain meta-skills such as high interest in life, persistence, as well as low self-centeredness.
Moreover, in a recent study investigating associations between flow and the 5-personality types, they found a negative correlation with neuroticism and a positive correlation between conscientiousness with the state of flow.
It can be speculated that neurotic individuals are more prone to anxiety and self-criticism, which are conditions that can disrupt this state. In contrast, conscientious individuals are more likely to spend time on mastering challenging tasks, which are characteristics important for flow experience.
What Happens in the Brain During Flow?This marathon runner definitely has decreased prefrontal cortex activity
The state of flow has been rarely investigated from a neuropsychological perspective but is a growing interest. According to Dietrich, it has been associated with decreased activity in the prefrontal cortex.
The prefrontal cortex is an area responsible for higher cognitive functions such as self-reflective consciousness, memory, temporal integration, and working memory. It’s an area that’s responsible for our conscious and explicit mind state.
However, in a state of flow, this area is believed to temporarily down-regulate; a process called transient hypofrontality. This temporary inactivation of the prefrontal area may trigger the feeling of distortion of time, loss of self-consciousness, and loss of inner-critic.
Moreover, the inhibition of the prefrontal lobe may enable the implicit mind to take over, resulting in more brain areas to communicate freely and engage in a creative process. In other research, it’s also hypothesized that the flow state is related to the brain’s dopamine reward circuitry since curiosity is highly amplified.
How to Get Into The Flow?It’s important to note that one can’t experience flow if other distractions disrupt the experience (Nakamura et al., 2009). Thus, to experience this state, one has to stay away from the attention-robbers in our modern fast-paced life. A first step would be to dump your smartphone
Also, the balance of perceived challenges and skills are important factors (Nakamura et al., 2009). On the one hand, when a challenge is bigger than one’s level of skills, one becomes anxious and stressed. On the other hand, when the level of skill exceeds the size of the challenge, one becomes bored and distracted. Since the experience of this state is just in the middle, the balance is essential.
“Inducing flow is about the balance between the level of skill and the size of the challenge at hand.”
The experience of flow in everyday life is an important component of creativity and well-being. Indeed, it can be prescribed as a key aspect of ‘’eudaimonia’’ or self-actualization in an individual, a contradictory term to “hedonia” or pleasure. Since it is also intrinsically rewarding, the more you practice it, the more you seek to replicate these experiences, which help lead to a fully engaged and happy life.
Don’t Flow Alone…Researchers from St. Bonaventure University asked students to participate in activities that would induce flow either in a team or by themselves.
Students rated flow to be more enjoyable when in a team rather than when they were alone. Students also found it more joyful if the team members were able to talk to one another. This finding was replicated even when skill level and challenge were equal.
A final study found that being in an interdependent group whilst in flow is more enjoyable than one that is not. So, if you want to get more enjoyment out of an experience of flow, try engaging in activities together.
This beautifully echoes Christopher Peterson’s conclusion that positive psychology can be summed up in three words: “Other people matter“.
What is The Motivation Behind Your Flow State?Most of your conscious action requires motivation and there are two basic types: Intrinsic and Extrinsic.
Intrinsic motivation is where you do something because you love it. Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (2013) said the highest intrinsic motivation is “Flow” where self-consciousness is lost, one surrenders completely to the moment and time means nothing. Like when a competent musician plays without thinking, or a surfer catches a great wave and rides it with joy.
Extrinsic motivation is where your motivation to succeed is controlled externally. Fear motivation is not getting into trouble or working hard to earn more money. That type of motivation is short-lived. Good extrinsic motivation is where you are practicing to get better but you still need a tutor or teacher to validate your efforts.
Using Images To Boost Confidence And FlowPsychologists Koehn et al. (2013) conducted research into different performance contexts and the production of the flow state, looking specifically at the way imagery and confidence levels interact to create flow. Participants completed imagery and confidence measures before undertaking a field test (Koehn et al., 2013). Measuring the performance of a tennis groundstroke, Koehn et al. (2013) found a significant interaction between imagery and confidence.
Koehn et al. (2013) were able to demonstrate positive associations between imagery, confidence and the inducement of a flow state, which in turn predicts increased performance. In essence, the conduction of a flow state is seen to significantly increase peresrformance levels in a given external task (Koehn et al., 2013).
– Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
(Here’s a fun trick to remember his name: “Me high? Cheeks send me high!”)
Do you remember that moment when creativity and productivity sprung from your mind smoothly? According to positive psychology cofounder Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, this state is called flow, and it is an important contributor to creativity and well-being.
This article contains:
- Who is Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi?
- The 8 Characteristics of Flow
- Who Experiences Flow?
- What Happens in the Brain During Flow?
- How to Get Into The Flow?
- Don’t Flow Alone…
- What is The Motivation Behind Your Flow State?
- Using Images To Boost Confidence And Flow
- TED Talk On Flow: The Secret To Happiness
The Positive Psychology toolkit is a science-based, online platform containing 135+ exercises, activities, interventions, questionnaires, assessments and scales.
The experience of flow is universal and it has been reported to occur across different classes, genders, ages, cultures and it can be experienced in many types of activities.
If you’ve ever heard someone describe a time when their performance excelled and they used the term being “in the zone”, what they’re describing is an experience of flow. It occurs when your skill level and the challenge at hand are equal.
Here’s a short video with a great explanation of Flow:
Who is Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi?From his own adverse experiences as a prisoner during World War II and from witnessing the pain and suffering from many people around him during this time, he developed a curiosity about happiness and being content with life.
He observed how many people were unable to live a life of contentment after their jobs, homes, security, etc, were taken from them during the war. After the war he read philosophy and took an interest in art and religion as a means to seek an answer to the question, what creates a life worth living?
Eventually he stumbled upon psychology whilst at a ski resort in Switzerland. He attended a lecture by Carl Jung, who talked about the traumatized psyches of the European people after World War II. He was so intrigued that he started to read Jung’s work, and eventually took an interest in psychology. Which in turn led him to the United States to pursue psychology. What he really wanted was to study the roots of happiness.
Finding Out What Happiness Really IsHis studies led him to conclude that happiness is an internal state of being, not an external one. His popular book, Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience (Amazon) is based on the premise that happiness levels can be shifted through the introduction of more flow.
Happiness is not a rigid state that can’t be changed. On the contrary, happiness takes a committed effort to be manifested. After the baseline set point, there is a percentage of happiness that every individual has the responsibility to take control of. He believes that flow is crucial to creating genuine happiness.
“Happiness takes a committed effort to be manifested.”
Through much research he began to understand that people were most creative, productive, and often, happiest when they are in this state of flow. He interviewed athletes, musicians, artists, etc. because he wanted to know when they experienced the most optimal performance levels.
He was also interested in finding out how they felt during these experiences. He developed the term flow state because many of the people he interviewed described their optimal states of performance as instances when their work simply flowed out of them without much effort.
He aimed to discover what piqued creativity, especially in the workplace, and how creativity lead to more productivity. He also determined that flow is not only essential to a productive employee but it is imperative for a contented one as well. In his own words, flow is:
“A state in which people are so involved in an activity that nothing else seems to matter; the experience is so enjoyable that people will continue to do it even at great cost, for the sheer sake of doing it.”
– Csikszentmihalyi, 1990
Here are some of the characteristics that comprise Csikszentmihalyi’s definition of optimal flow performance.
The 8 Characteristics of FlowCsikszentmihalyi describes 8 characteristics of flow:
- Complete concentration on the task
- Clarity of goals and reward in mind and immediate feedback
- Transformation of time (speeding up/slowing down of time)
- The experience is intrinsically rewarding, has an end itself
- Effortlessness and ease
- There is a balance between challenge and skills
- Actions and awareness are merged, losing self-conscious rumination
- There is a feeling of control over the task
Who Experiences Flow?Interestingly, a capacity to experience flow can differ from person to person. Studies suggest that those with ‘’autotelic personalities’’ tend to experience more flow.
A person with an ‘’autotelic personality’’ tends to do things for their own sake rather than chasing some distant external goal. This type of personality is distinguished by certain meta-skills such as high interest in life, persistence, as well as low self-centeredness.
Moreover, in a recent study investigating associations between flow and the 5-personality types, they found a negative correlation with neuroticism and a positive correlation between conscientiousness with the state of flow.
It can be speculated that neurotic individuals are more prone to anxiety and self-criticism, which are conditions that can disrupt this state. In contrast, conscientious individuals are more likely to spend time on mastering challenging tasks, which are characteristics important for flow experience.
What Happens in the Brain During Flow?This marathon runner definitely has decreased prefrontal cortex activity
The state of flow has been rarely investigated from a neuropsychological perspective but is a growing interest. According to Dietrich, it has been associated with decreased activity in the prefrontal cortex.
The prefrontal cortex is an area responsible for higher cognitive functions such as self-reflective consciousness, memory, temporal integration, and working memory. It’s an area that’s responsible for our conscious and explicit mind state.
However, in a state of flow, this area is believed to temporarily down-regulate; a process called transient hypofrontality. This temporary inactivation of the prefrontal area may trigger the feeling of distortion of time, loss of self-consciousness, and loss of inner-critic.
Moreover, the inhibition of the prefrontal lobe may enable the implicit mind to take over, resulting in more brain areas to communicate freely and engage in a creative process. In other research, it’s also hypothesized that the flow state is related to the brain’s dopamine reward circuitry since curiosity is highly amplified.
How to Get Into The Flow?It’s important to note that one can’t experience flow if other distractions disrupt the experience (Nakamura et al., 2009). Thus, to experience this state, one has to stay away from the attention-robbers in our modern fast-paced life. A first step would be to dump your smartphone
Also, the balance of perceived challenges and skills are important factors (Nakamura et al., 2009). On the one hand, when a challenge is bigger than one’s level of skills, one becomes anxious and stressed. On the other hand, when the level of skill exceeds the size of the challenge, one becomes bored and distracted. Since the experience of this state is just in the middle, the balance is essential.
“Inducing flow is about the balance between the level of skill and the size of the challenge at hand.”
The experience of flow in everyday life is an important component of creativity and well-being. Indeed, it can be prescribed as a key aspect of ‘’eudaimonia’’ or self-actualization in an individual, a contradictory term to “hedonia” or pleasure. Since it is also intrinsically rewarding, the more you practice it, the more you seek to replicate these experiences, which help lead to a fully engaged and happy life.
Don’t Flow Alone…Researchers from St. Bonaventure University asked students to participate in activities that would induce flow either in a team or by themselves.
Students rated flow to be more enjoyable when in a team rather than when they were alone. Students also found it more joyful if the team members were able to talk to one another. This finding was replicated even when skill level and challenge were equal.
A final study found that being in an interdependent group whilst in flow is more enjoyable than one that is not. So, if you want to get more enjoyment out of an experience of flow, try engaging in activities together.
This beautifully echoes Christopher Peterson’s conclusion that positive psychology can be summed up in three words: “Other people matter“.
What is The Motivation Behind Your Flow State?Most of your conscious action requires motivation and there are two basic types: Intrinsic and Extrinsic.
Intrinsic motivation is where you do something because you love it. Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (2013) said the highest intrinsic motivation is “Flow” where self-consciousness is lost, one surrenders completely to the moment and time means nothing. Like when a competent musician plays without thinking, or a surfer catches a great wave and rides it with joy.
Extrinsic motivation is where your motivation to succeed is controlled externally. Fear motivation is not getting into trouble or working hard to earn more money. That type of motivation is short-lived. Good extrinsic motivation is where you are practicing to get better but you still need a tutor or teacher to validate your efforts.
Using Images To Boost Confidence And FlowPsychologists Koehn et al. (2013) conducted research into different performance contexts and the production of the flow state, looking specifically at the way imagery and confidence levels interact to create flow. Participants completed imagery and confidence measures before undertaking a field test (Koehn et al., 2013). Measuring the performance of a tennis groundstroke, Koehn et al. (2013) found a significant interaction between imagery and confidence.
Koehn et al. (2013) were able to demonstrate positive associations between imagery, confidence and the inducement of a flow state, which in turn predicts increased performance. In essence, the conduction of a flow state is seen to significantly increase peresrformance levels in a given external task (Koehn et al., 2013).
“If you are interested in something, you will focus on it, and if you focus attention on anything, it is likely that you will become interested in it. Many of the things we find interesting are not so by nature, but because we took the trouble of paying attention to them.”
― Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, Finding Flow: The Psychology of Engagement with Everyday Life
“To overcome the anxieties and depressions of contemporary life, individuals must become independent of the social environment to the degree that they no longer respond exclusively in terms of its rewards and punishments. To achieve such autonomy, a person has to learn to provide rewards to herself. She has to develop the ability to find enjoyment and purpose regardless of external circumstances.”
― Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience
“A joyful life is an individual creation that cannot be copied from a recipe.”
― Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
“Most enjoyable activities are not natural; they demand an effort that initially one is reluctant to make. But once the interaction starts to provide feedback to the person's skills, it usually begins to be intrinsically rewarding.”
― Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience
“Contrary to what we usually believe, moments like these, the best moments in our lives, are not the passive, receptive, relaxing times—although such experiences can also be enjoyable, if we have worked hard to attain them. The best moments usually occur when a person’s body or mind is stretched to its limits in a voluntary effort to accomplish something difficult and worthwhile. Optimal experience is thus something that we
make happen. For a child, it could be placing with trembling fingers the last blockon a tower she has built, higher than any she has built so far; for a swimmer, it could be trying to beat his own record; for a violinist, mastering an intricate musical passage. For each person there are thousands of opportunities, challenges to expand ourselves.”
― Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience
“Enjoyment appears at the boundary between boredom and anxiety, when the challenges are just balanced with the person's capacity to act.”
― Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
“If one has failed to develop curiosity and interest in the early years, it is a good idea to acquire them now, before it is too late to improve the quality of life.
To do so is fairly easy in principle, but more difficult in practice. Yet it is sure worth trying. The first step is to develop the habit of doing whatever needs to be done with concentrated attention, with skill rather than inertia. Even the most routine tasks, like washing dishes, dressing, or mowing the lawn become more rewarding if we approach them with the care it would take to make a work of art. The next step is to transfer some psychic energy each day from tasks that we don’t like doing, or from passive leisure, into something we never did before, or something we enjoy doing but don’t do often enough because it seems too much trouble. There are literally millions of potentially interesting things in the world to see, to do, to learn about. But they don’t become actually interesting until we devote attention to them.”
― Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, Finding Flow: The Psychology of Engagement with Everyday Life
“...It is when we act freely, for the sake of the action itself rather than for ulterior motives, that we learn to become more than what we were.”
― Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience
“The task is to learn how to enjoy everyday life without diminishing other people's chances to enjoy theirs.”
― Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
“It is by being fully involved with every detail of our lives, whether good or bad, that we find happiness, not by trying to look for it directly.”
― Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
“Few things are sadder than encountering a person who knows exactly what he should do, yet cannot muster enough energy to do it. "He who desires but acts not," wrote Blake with his accustomed vigor, "Breeds pestilence.”
― Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience
“the self expands through acts of self forgetfulness.”
― Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
“Of all the virtues we can learn no trait is more useful, more essential for survival, and more likely to improve the quality of life than the ability to transform adversity into an enjoyable challenge.”
― Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, Flow: The Psychology of Happiness
“It is better to look suffering straight in the eye, acknowledge and respect it’s presence, and then get busy as soon as possible focusing on things we choose to focus on.”
― Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
“On the job people feel skillful and challenged, and therefore feel more happy, strong, creative, and satisfied. In their free time people feel that there is generally not much to do and their skills are not being used, and therefore they tend to feel more sad, weak, dull, and dissatisfied. Yet they would like to work less and spend more time in leisure.
What does this contradictory pattern mean? There are several possible explanations, but one conclusion seems inevitable: when it comes to work, people do not heed the evidence of their senses. They disregard the quality of immediate experience, and base their motivation instead on the strongly rooted cultural stereotype of what work is supposed to be like. They think of it as an imposition, a constraint, an infringement of their freedom, and therefore something to be avoided as much as possible.”
― Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience
“The psychic entropy peculiar to the human condition involves seeing more to do than one can actually accomplish and feeling able to accomplish more than what conditions allow.”
― Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience
“The mystique of rock climbing is climbing; you get to the top of a rock glad it’s over but really wish it would go on forever. The justification of climbing is climbing, like the justification of poetry is writing; you don’t conquer anything except things in yourself…. The act of writing justifies poetry. Climbing is the same: recognizing that you are a flow. The purpose of the flow is to keep on flowing, not looking for a peak or utopia but staying in the flow. It is not a moving up but a continuous flowing; you move up to keep the flow going. There is no possible reason for climbing except the climbing itself; it is a self-communication.”
― Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, Flow
“These examples suggest what one needs to learn to control attention. In principle any skill or discipline one can master on one’s own will serve: meditation and prayer if one is so inclined; exercise, aerobics, martial arts for those who prefer concentrating on physical skills. Any specialization or expertise that one finds enjoyable and where one can improve one’s knowledge over time. The important thing, however, is the attitude toward these disciplines. If one prays in order to be holy, or exercises to develop strong pectoral muscles, or learns to be knowledgeable, then a great deal of the benefit is lost. The important thing is to enjoy the activity for its own sake, and to know that what matters is not the result, but the control one is acquiring over one’s attention.”
― Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, Finding Flow: The Psychology of Engagement with Everyday Life
“...success, like happiness, cannot be pursued; it must ensue...as the unintended side-effect of one's personal dedication to a course greater than oneself.”
― Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience
“Pain and pleasure occur in consciousness and exist only there”
― Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
“It is when we act freely, for the sake of the action itself rather than for ulterior motives, that we learn to become more than what we were. When we choose a goal and invest ourselves in it to the limits of concentration, whatever we do will be enjoyable. And once we have tasted this joy, we will redouble our efforts to taste it again. This is the way the self grows.”
― Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience
“Few things are sadder than encountering a person who knows exactly what he should do, yet cannot muster enough energy to do it.”
― Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience
“But it is impossible to enjoy a tennis game, a book, or a conversation unless attention is fully concentrated on the activity.”
― Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
“Repression is not the way to virtue. When people restrain themselves out of fear, their lives are by necessity diminished. Only through freely chosen discipline can life be enjoyed and still kept within the bounds of reason.”
― Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
“It is not the skills we actually have that determine how we feel but the ones we think we have.”
― Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience
“it's a wise parent who allows her children to give up the things of childhood in their own time.”
― Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience
“People who learn to control inner experience will be able to determine the quality of their lives, which is as close as any of us can come to being happy.”
― Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience
“Attention is like energy in that without it no work can be done, and in doing work is dissipated. We create ourselves by how we use this energy. Memories, thoughts and feelings are all shaped by how use it. And it is an energy under control, to do with as we please; hence attention is our most important tool in the task of improving the quality of experience.”
― Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience
“It is how we choose what we do, and how we approach it, that will determine whether the sum of our days adds up to a formless blur, or to something resembling a work of art.”
― Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, Finding Flow: The Psychology of Engagement with Everyday Life
― Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, Finding Flow: The Psychology of Engagement with Everyday Life
“To overcome the anxieties and depressions of contemporary life, individuals must become independent of the social environment to the degree that they no longer respond exclusively in terms of its rewards and punishments. To achieve such autonomy, a person has to learn to provide rewards to herself. She has to develop the ability to find enjoyment and purpose regardless of external circumstances.”
― Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience
“A joyful life is an individual creation that cannot be copied from a recipe.”
― Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
“Most enjoyable activities are not natural; they demand an effort that initially one is reluctant to make. But once the interaction starts to provide feedback to the person's skills, it usually begins to be intrinsically rewarding.”
― Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience
“Contrary to what we usually believe, moments like these, the best moments in our lives, are not the passive, receptive, relaxing times—although such experiences can also be enjoyable, if we have worked hard to attain them. The best moments usually occur when a person’s body or mind is stretched to its limits in a voluntary effort to accomplish something difficult and worthwhile. Optimal experience is thus something that we
make happen. For a child, it could be placing with trembling fingers the last blockon a tower she has built, higher than any she has built so far; for a swimmer, it could be trying to beat his own record; for a violinist, mastering an intricate musical passage. For each person there are thousands of opportunities, challenges to expand ourselves.”
― Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience
“Enjoyment appears at the boundary between boredom and anxiety, when the challenges are just balanced with the person's capacity to act.”
― Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
“If one has failed to develop curiosity and interest in the early years, it is a good idea to acquire them now, before it is too late to improve the quality of life.
To do so is fairly easy in principle, but more difficult in practice. Yet it is sure worth trying. The first step is to develop the habit of doing whatever needs to be done with concentrated attention, with skill rather than inertia. Even the most routine tasks, like washing dishes, dressing, or mowing the lawn become more rewarding if we approach them with the care it would take to make a work of art. The next step is to transfer some psychic energy each day from tasks that we don’t like doing, or from passive leisure, into something we never did before, or something we enjoy doing but don’t do often enough because it seems too much trouble. There are literally millions of potentially interesting things in the world to see, to do, to learn about. But they don’t become actually interesting until we devote attention to them.”
― Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, Finding Flow: The Psychology of Engagement with Everyday Life
“...It is when we act freely, for the sake of the action itself rather than for ulterior motives, that we learn to become more than what we were.”
― Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience
“The task is to learn how to enjoy everyday life without diminishing other people's chances to enjoy theirs.”
― Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
“It is by being fully involved with every detail of our lives, whether good or bad, that we find happiness, not by trying to look for it directly.”
― Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
“Few things are sadder than encountering a person who knows exactly what he should do, yet cannot muster enough energy to do it. "He who desires but acts not," wrote Blake with his accustomed vigor, "Breeds pestilence.”
― Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience
“the self expands through acts of self forgetfulness.”
― Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
“Of all the virtues we can learn no trait is more useful, more essential for survival, and more likely to improve the quality of life than the ability to transform adversity into an enjoyable challenge.”
― Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, Flow: The Psychology of Happiness
“It is better to look suffering straight in the eye, acknowledge and respect it’s presence, and then get busy as soon as possible focusing on things we choose to focus on.”
― Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
“On the job people feel skillful and challenged, and therefore feel more happy, strong, creative, and satisfied. In their free time people feel that there is generally not much to do and their skills are not being used, and therefore they tend to feel more sad, weak, dull, and dissatisfied. Yet they would like to work less and spend more time in leisure.
What does this contradictory pattern mean? There are several possible explanations, but one conclusion seems inevitable: when it comes to work, people do not heed the evidence of their senses. They disregard the quality of immediate experience, and base their motivation instead on the strongly rooted cultural stereotype of what work is supposed to be like. They think of it as an imposition, a constraint, an infringement of their freedom, and therefore something to be avoided as much as possible.”
― Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience
“The psychic entropy peculiar to the human condition involves seeing more to do than one can actually accomplish and feeling able to accomplish more than what conditions allow.”
― Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience
“The mystique of rock climbing is climbing; you get to the top of a rock glad it’s over but really wish it would go on forever. The justification of climbing is climbing, like the justification of poetry is writing; you don’t conquer anything except things in yourself…. The act of writing justifies poetry. Climbing is the same: recognizing that you are a flow. The purpose of the flow is to keep on flowing, not looking for a peak or utopia but staying in the flow. It is not a moving up but a continuous flowing; you move up to keep the flow going. There is no possible reason for climbing except the climbing itself; it is a self-communication.”
― Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, Flow
“These examples suggest what one needs to learn to control attention. In principle any skill or discipline one can master on one’s own will serve: meditation and prayer if one is so inclined; exercise, aerobics, martial arts for those who prefer concentrating on physical skills. Any specialization or expertise that one finds enjoyable and where one can improve one’s knowledge over time. The important thing, however, is the attitude toward these disciplines. If one prays in order to be holy, or exercises to develop strong pectoral muscles, or learns to be knowledgeable, then a great deal of the benefit is lost. The important thing is to enjoy the activity for its own sake, and to know that what matters is not the result, but the control one is acquiring over one’s attention.”
― Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, Finding Flow: The Psychology of Engagement with Everyday Life
“...success, like happiness, cannot be pursued; it must ensue...as the unintended side-effect of one's personal dedication to a course greater than oneself.”
― Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience
“Pain and pleasure occur in consciousness and exist only there”
― Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
“It is when we act freely, for the sake of the action itself rather than for ulterior motives, that we learn to become more than what we were. When we choose a goal and invest ourselves in it to the limits of concentration, whatever we do will be enjoyable. And once we have tasted this joy, we will redouble our efforts to taste it again. This is the way the self grows.”
― Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience
“Few things are sadder than encountering a person who knows exactly what he should do, yet cannot muster enough energy to do it.”
― Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience
“But it is impossible to enjoy a tennis game, a book, or a conversation unless attention is fully concentrated on the activity.”
― Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
“Repression is not the way to virtue. When people restrain themselves out of fear, their lives are by necessity diminished. Only through freely chosen discipline can life be enjoyed and still kept within the bounds of reason.”
― Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
“It is not the skills we actually have that determine how we feel but the ones we think we have.”
― Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience
“it's a wise parent who allows her children to give up the things of childhood in their own time.”
― Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience
“People who learn to control inner experience will be able to determine the quality of their lives, which is as close as any of us can come to being happy.”
― Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience
“Attention is like energy in that without it no work can be done, and in doing work is dissipated. We create ourselves by how we use this energy. Memories, thoughts and feelings are all shaped by how use it. And it is an energy under control, to do with as we please; hence attention is our most important tool in the task of improving the quality of experience.”
― Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience
“It is how we choose what we do, and how we approach it, that will determine whether the sum of our days adds up to a formless blur, or to something resembling a work of art.”
― Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, Finding Flow: The Psychology of Engagement with Everyday Life