Flow Buchzusammenfassung - das Wichtigste aus Flow

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Zusammenfassung von Flow

Name: Flow
Rating: 4.4 (827 reviews)
Author: Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

The Psychology of Optimal Experience

4.4 (827 Bewertungen)

23 Min.

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Inspiration Creative Flow Mindful Work

Inhaltsübersicht

Flow
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What’s in it for me? To discover meaning in your life, just go with the flow.

Why is it that some people enjoy a happy and creative existence while others seem to find themselves settling into a comfortable but frustrating rut?

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi’s Flow has the answer.

A seminal work in psychology, Flow argues that in our increasingly anxious, distracted lives, we can become too focused on external rewards and opinions (for example, by compulsively comparing ourselves with our peers). As a much-needed remedy, the book offers techniques that enable us to focus instead on intrinsic rewards, which can lead us to engage in our interests so totally that we enter a state of pure flow. In such a state, we simply don’t care about external rewards like power or wealth and we don’t even consider the opinions of others.

Grounded in years of empirical research, Flow also taps into ancient wisdom, philosophy and modern psychology to provide countless examples of people who discovered how to “get into the zone,” and thus lead contented lives and do their best work.

For instance, you’ll discover that many scientists did some of their most revolutionary work in their spare time. You’ll find out why a surgeon or millionaire footballer might be deeply bored, while a factory worker waxes lyrical about all manner of subjects. You’ll also learn why going to jail can help you discover your goals and strengthen your resolve – as it did for Malcolm X. And, finally, you’ll see how being more mindful of your surroundings can also help you to get the most out of listening to music.

If you are dissatisfied at work or bored and unhappy at home, these blinks will jolt you out of your rut and drive you to make the most of your limited time on this planet.

We use religion and luxury to hide from an indifferent, meaningless world.

When we view our lives from a distance, they seem insignificant. And when we examine them closely, we notice that we’re unhappy and unfulfilled. To help us cope, most of us look for comfort in religion or we seek external rewards, like wealth or fame.

While this approach seems to make sense, it can also lead to us abandoning our critical faculties.

For example, while organized religions like Christianity and Islam have provided us with rules to live by and given our lives meaning, our firsthand discovery of our predicament in the universe has shown the principles of religion to be wrong. Still, many people continue to follow religious ideologies because they’re more comfortable thinking of life as meaningful.

Also, many empires and cultures led their citizens to believe they’d mastered their fates – for instance, the Romans at the height of their power and the Chinese before the Mongol invasion. Although this belief comforted people, it proved completely wrong as each of these civilizations collapsed.

And if we’re not hiding behind religion or political ideology to avoid the pointlessness of our lives, we’re struggling to acquire external rewards like power, wealth or fame. But these don’t satisfy us for very long either.

Certainly we live in luxurious times and people from the past wouldn’t believe the conveniences that modern life provides. But having more money and acquiring more stuff doesn’t seem to make us happier. As one study showed, satisfaction with life doesn’t correlate strongly with being wealthy. You don’t need to look far to see evidence of this: just think about the number of rich patients that psychiatrists treat regularly.

So in order to give our lives meaning, we try to change the environment around us, whether by displaying our wealth to impress others or chasing powerful positions. Yet these all fail to sustain our happiness.

Our genes impel us to seek basic pleasures, not the skills and challenges found in enjoyment.

While our attention can manage only a limited amount of information during our lifetime, from this dwindling resource most of us choose instant gratification as compensation for the daily grind of our lives.

This is because we favor simple pleasure over the more rewarding, yet more difficult to attain, enjoyment.

The elements of enjoyment are available to everyone, but the goal is unique to each of us.

Across different languages and cultures, people use the same terms to describe what they feel when they are “in the zone.”

This feeling is one of enjoyment rather than pleasure and it comes when you are engaged in a task or activity that balances skills and challenges, has clear goals and immediate feedback.

Developing new and interesting skills requires facing challenges that are tied to personal rewards.

One morning in Naples, a US tourist walked into an antique store and asked to buy a sculpture. The owner quoted a steep figure, yet when he saw the tourist was about to pay he claimed the sculpture wasn’t for sale.

Why?

With discipline, we can use our senses and movements to help us tune into a heightened state of awareness.

For most of us, the idea of paying attention to our walking is an unusual one. Walking simply gets us from A to B.

But by paying attention to the variety of sights around you – the people, their interactions, historical relics, architecture and so on – even the most routine actions, such as walking, can be transformed.By practicing mindfulness of our surroundings, we can learn to perceive much more than our automatic response to the world allows.

Our memories and thoughts can be cultivated to focus on complex ideas rather than the flaws of the self.

Many of us who play sports and exercise gain enjoyment from the focused attention these activities require. But it's not only through sports that we can achieve this: we can also use our minds to play games and get into the "flow state" which produces enjoyment.

Such a mental flow state can result from engaging in language and memory games and exercises. For instance, crosswords kill time on trains, but this pursuit is dependent on an external stimulus. Instead, try creating your own crossword puzzles. Not only can this lead to flow, but it also improves your wordplay skills, making conversations more fun by transcending the usual small talk and mundane exchanges.

Work that you treat like a game, with intrinsic rewards and varied skills, ceases to be “work.”

Many people are dissatisfied with their daily routines and often their jobs are to blame. What makes matters worse is that their leisure time is spent recovering from their work in the laziest way.

However, work can be developed into something that provides a challenge, focuses our attention and reduces our anxieties.

Engaging with family, friends and community is vital for our happiness, self-expression and growth.

Busy trains and open-plan offices can impinge on our freedom and individuality. Time spent alone allows us to give our undivided attention to something, but it can also lead to boredom. That’s when we need the support of the people we know and trust.

In short, good family, friends and neighbors.

Focused attention distances us from our anxiety, helping us to gain perspective and find new ways to grow.

We’re all faced with misfortune at some time or other. Rather than simply giving up because we feel unable to handle the situation, we could employ the following three strategies:

First, we should let go of our egos and trust in our ability to handle situations as they arise.

Discover purpose in life through having unified goals and the resolve to put them into action.

As Earth is not the center of the universe and our lives are manipulated by our genes, life can seem bereft of ultimate meaning. Yet we can certainly create meaning and the beauty of this is that each of us can choose what that meaning is.

To find your meaning you need an ultimate goal in life to focus on. The end goal is irrelevant, as long as it immerses you fully in increasingly complex challenges, allowing you to disregard others’ opinions.

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Worum geht es in Flow?

Flow (1990) explores how we can experience enjoyment in our lives by controlling our attention and strengthening our resolve. This is achieved by being immersed in an activity or subject that makes us neither anxious (if it’s too hard), nor bored (if it’s too easy). In this “flow state” we lose our self-consciousness, selfishness and sense of time. Using goal-setting and immediate feedback, we can achieve a state of flow that improves our relationship with work, increases our self-worth and gives our lives meaning.

Wer Flow lesen sollte

Anyone who wants to be more engaged with their relationships, their work or the world
Anyone aiming to rise out of mediocrity and gain mastery over something
Anyone who wants to know how their health can be improved by ancient wisdom and diverse cultures

Über den Autor

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi is a professor of psychology with a PhD from the University of Chicago. He has been described as the global leader in research on positive psychology, creativity and motivation. His other books based on this research include Creativity: The Psychology of Discovery and Invention and Finding Flow: The Psychology of Engagement with Everyday Life.

Kategorien mit Flow

Motivation & Inspiration Mindfulness & Happiness Psychology

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