Finding happiness in flow

Many years ago, long before I developed a professional interest in the concept of Intrinsic Motivation, I became fascinated by the subject of happiness. If one big goal of life was to be happy, I reasoned, why not do some research into mankind’s accumulated wisdom on the topic, and try to boost my chances by standing on the shoulders of giants. What could be a better use of time and energy?

Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience

Of course, the subject has fascinated humanity for millennia so I wasn’t at a loss for material. But after reading a few books, they all started to blend into one, with each espousing some variation on the idea that money, success, or beauty weren’t the keys to happiness. In fact, only one of the books I read during that period sticks out, lodged in my memory to this day. It was called ‘Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience’ and it was written by a Hungarian-American academic and psychologist with the intimidatingly long name of Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi.

Flow’s focus was different from the others, and I think it was the only one that actually made me significantly happier (at least for the few months that I was able to keep the book’s message squarely in mind).

I was reminded of this book, and how I felt when I read it, in late October of last year, when news broke that Csikszentmihalyi had passed away at the age of 87. This prompted me to take another look at Flow, and to see if it—and its author—still held resonance for me.

Finding Focus in Chaos

Born in 1934 in the city of Flume (at that time part of the Kingdom of Italy, but today known as Rijeka, the third-largest city in Croatia), Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi witnessed the chaos of World War II firsthand and, at a young age, began to wonder what it was that made life worth living. Immediately after the war, he and his family were taken by the Allies as political prisoners, and he discovered that playing chess took his mind away from the bleak, outside world—an experience he would later cite as a source of inspiration for his lifelong research interest.

He subsequently became captivated by psychology after hearing a lecture by the influential Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung, and emigrated to the U.S. to pursue a bachelor’s degree and then a doctorate in the field at the University of Chicago. A few years later, he joined the faculty at the school and played an important role in the development of positive psychology, a branch of the subject that investigates human flourishing and well-being.

His main academic contribution to the world is undoubtedly the concept of flow, which, at its core, describes the moments in life when a person is wholly engaged by a particular activity; a concert pianist mid-sonata, for example, or a rock climber ascending the face of a mountain. Situations where attention is so thoroughly channeled by the activity at hand that the rest of the world falls away, self-consciousness dissipates, and time passes virtually unnoticed. Although we realize it only retrospectively, Csikszentmihalyi contends, these are among the most meaningful and satisfying moments in our lives.

Pleasure vs Enjoyment

Given that the book was published more than 30 years ago, it’s reasonable to ask how well it has held up. Life today, of course, is pretty different to how it was in the pre-internet era of Flow’s publication. One obvious difference is the unending stream of electronic stimuli ruthlessly competing for our attention. When we become transfixed by this stream, we don’t feel like rock climbers ascending a mountain. On the contrary, much of the time spent this way feels distinctly unmeaningful and dissatisfying. Why?

The book’s answer to this question is rooted in the distinction between pleasure and enjoyment. Pleasure is passive—an almost instinctual response to external stimuli. It’s what you feel when you’re eating too much cheesecake or binging a season of your favorite show on Netflix. Enjoyment, on the other hand, is more active—it requires mental input. It’s what you feel when you’re challenging yourself with a task that demands you’re at the top of your game, or requires just a little bit more skill than you currently have.

Given the choice between the two, humans tend to gravitate towards pleasure. Put simply, our brains are lazy. They do not naturally focus in a deliberate way on a difficult task. This view coincides nicely with how many contemporary psychologists think about the brain. Their “dual processing” models suggest that parts of our cognition are automatic and effortless, while other parts are controlled and effortful—and much more rarely utilized.

Though it might be fun in the short term, our preference for pleasure isn’t really sustainable. The more you binge on something, the less pleasant you will find it. Enjoyment, on the other hand, offers more solid foundations for long-term happiness. Csikszentmihalyi notes that many of his readers already know this on some level; they have learned it from personal experience or ingested it via some cultural lesson. But unfortunately, simply knowing it isn’t enough. What is needed is the discipline of daily practice: a conscientious limiting of pleasure and a proactive seeking out of enjoyment in the shape of new challenges that hopefully lead to moments of flow.

Going with the Flow

Unfortunately, flow states are rare, and at least three conditions must be met in order to achieve them:

Condition 1: A person needs to know what their goal is with a particular activity. If they have only a vague notion of the goal, they won’t find the activity sufficiently engrossing.
Condition 2: The person needs to be given clear feedback on their actions. They need to know whether their behavior brings them closer to that goal or pushes them further away from it.
Condition 3: The person needs to be challenged. The demands of the activity should require slightly more skill than they currently have.

But while meeting these conditions is a prerequisite for achieving a flow state, it’s not the only thing that’s needed. What’s missing is cognitive effort. Before a person can reach those rarified moments of intense focus, they have to put in a lot of mental work to lay the foundations for such experiences.

At Attuned, we believe that the best way to forge this path is by first understanding one’s own Intrinsic Motivation: the combination of values and preferences within each person that make doing a particular task meaningful. In short, it’s not enough just to seek new challenges; they have to be the right kind of challenges for each individual. Only then will they feel like their Intrinsic Motivation needs are being met.

Flow in the Workplace

Creating flow in workplace settings is particularly challenging, but there are a number of things that organizations can do to help cultivate it. For example, managers could be more explicit about the goal of any tasks they assign to their teams. They could also do more to offer feedback in a way that maximizes employee learning. And, mindful of the need to challenge people to push the edges of their comfort zone, they could assign tasks more deliberately according to individual employee skill level.

But the onus is not entirely on management. Employees could also do more to communicate with their managers when these conditions are not met. And they could block out distractions as best they can, for example, by turning off messaging apps and scheduling significant chunks of time to focus on one—and only one—task.

This is merely scratching the surface, however, and if you want to know more about flow, I’d highly recommend picking up a copy of Csikszentmihalyi’s magnum opus, which, for me at least, has certainly stood the test of time. And if the concept of Intrinsic Motivation is new to you, you might also consider downloading our free White Paper on the subject.

Unfortunately I can’t guarantee that either will bring you true happiness, but they should help you figure out what you need to do to get on the right path.

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