Flow by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
Flow by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
Bibliography
- Author: Shortform
- Full_Title: Flow by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
- Category: books
- Last Highlighted Date: 2024-02-23 12:10:54.840785+00:00
Highlights
- People are happy when they feel a sense of control over their thoughts and feelings. When this happens, we experience a “flow” state: We enjoy ourselves, we feel a sense of purpose and meaning, and other things don’t seem to matter as much.
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- Consciousness is a mental state of awareness in which we perceive, process, order, and act on sensory input and information—feelings, ideas, and perceptions.
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- When you get feedback that doesn’t align with your goals, you experience fear and anxiety, making working on your goals difficult. Csikszentmihalyi calls this “disorder in consciousness” or “psychic entropy”: Your attention is divided, making it near-impossible to achieve a flow state.
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- To reach a flow state and accomplish your goals, you need to direct your attention. When your attention is so focused that everything else fades into the background, you achieve what Csikszentmihalyi calls “inner order” or “order in consciousness.”
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- attention is the most important tool you have to order your consciousness and improve your quality of life
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- You experience pleasure when you meet biological needs or needs you’ve developed through social conditioning. But pleasure alone can’t provide happiness.
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- In contrast, enjoyment can create new order in consciousness because it requires effort.
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- To reorder your consciousness and feel happier, you need to seek new, challenging goals and work toward them frequently.
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- The Nine Elements of Enjoyment
When people describe an enjoyable experience conducive to flow, they mention one or more of the following nine components:
You’re able to concentrate on an activity for an extended period of time.
The task has a clear goal.
You receive immediate feedback on your progress.
You have the skills to complete the task.
You feel a sense of control.
You’re absorbed in the task, and it feels almost effortless. You’re not thinking about stresses from the rest of your life.
Your sense of time is altered. You either feel like time passes quickly or that it has slowed in a helpful way.
You don’t feel self-conscious, and your sense of self emerges stronger.
The experience is autotelic: You want to repeat it because it was so enjoyable.
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- If you’re naturally inclined toward finding flow in everyday experiences, you have an autotelic personality.
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- To transform an activity into a flow activity, create a framework for what you want to do and how you’ll measure progress. Here’s how:
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- Set a goal.
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- Decide how you’ll measure your progress.
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- Concentrate on the activity.
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- Study all aspects of the activity to understand its nuances.
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- Develop the skills needed to take advantage of new opportunities.
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- Don’t get bored.
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- Finding meaning that gives order to your consciousness and life is the meaning of life. This involves alternating between focusing on yourself and focusing on the world around you, differentiating yourself from others in your community, and becoming more integrated into your community.
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