Finding happiness in flow

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.

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.

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.