FLOW – Book Summary

Author: Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi.
Rating: 4/5

Notable Quotes:

“The future will belong not only to the educated man, but to the man who is eduated to use his leasure wisly”

“Achiving controll over the contents of our consuciounsess is the key to happiness”

“A joyfull life is an individual creation that cannot be copied from a recipe”

 

Summary (less than 100 words):

“The best moments [in our lives]… occur when a person’s body or mind is stretched to its limits in a voluntary effort to accomplish something difficult or worthwhile.”

Flow explains how to truly become happy by creating your own meaning of life. It describes flow as being where challenges and skill match. Mihaly aslo explains that the difference between pleasure and enjoymen is that enjoyment requires effor. He also makes the point that everything we do should be autotelic (when you do something for your self). One of the best points that Mihaly writes about is setting a “life goal”. He says every one should set a goal that keeps you challenged and that you extreamly motivated about. This goal should mean so much that you wont care what any one else thinks of it. All you have to do is make sure that the goal keeps you challenged and ensures that you never stop developing. So set a life goal!

 

Mihaly’s conditions of FLOW:

Stages of flow:

1. Confront tasks we have a chance at completing.
2. Concentrate on that task.
3. Set clearly defined goals.
4. Set up a system in which you recive imidiate feedback every time you achive something. This keeps you motivated.
5. This task should then feel effortless and allow you to forget about your everyday problems.
6. Be in controll. this is where insecurities dissapear.
7. Your confidence should then build. You will stop caring what others think and your self worth will increase after your state of flow.
8. Loose track of time.

 

Interesting things you learnt:

1. You are incontroll of your own lifes meaning and therfore your own happiness.
2. If we can achive flow in our personal and professional lives then we will lead much happier and more meanigfull lives.