Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience. Read the book “Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience” online in full - Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi - MyBook Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi flow read online full version

Summary of Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi’s book “Flow. Psychology of optimal experience.”

Take time for important thoughts and conclusions that can change your life. Zozhnik and the SmartReading project share with you a summary of Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi’s book “Flow. Psychology of optimal experience.”

A New Look at Happiness

Even 2300 years ago, the ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle came to the conclusion that more than anything else in the world, a person wants happiness, but we still do not know what happiness is and how to achieve it. What does a person need to feel happy? First of all, understand that happiness is not the result of luck or chance. It cannot be bought with money or achieved by force. It depends not on the events happening around us, but on our interpretation of them. Happiness is a state that everyone should cultivate and keep within themselves. People who have learned to control their experiences will be able to influence the quality of their lives. This is the only way each of us can get closer to being happy.

Happiness cannot be achieved by consciously setting such a goal. We find happiness only by being completely immersed in the little things that make up our lives. Our perception of life is the result of various forces that give shape to our experiences. In those rare moments when we felt control over our actions, mastery over our own destiny, we feel inspired, especially joyful. These feelings remain in our hearts for a long time and serve as a guide in life. This is the optimal experience, and it is closest to what we usually call “happiness.” Having achieved control over one’s mental energy, spending it on fulfilling consciously chosen goals, a person becomes a more complex, more multifaceted personality. Improving his skills, challenging ever more complex tasks, he is constantly evolving.

As the basic problems of survival are solved, a person is constantly missing something. However, there are people who, regardless of their financial situation, were able to improve the quality of their lives and find satisfaction. They move forward, full of strength and energy, open to new experiences, live in harmony with nature and the people around them, and constantly improve themselves. No matter how difficult and tedious their activities may be, they do not know boredom and accept everything that comes their way with calm and self-control. Their main strength is that they are able to manage their own lives.

Although humanity has moved forward in terms of technological progress and the accumulation of material wealth, little success has been achieved in improving the internal content of our lives. And you can’t get out of this trap unless you take the initiative into your own hands. To overcome worries and troubles, a person must become independent from the social environment and learn to find rewards within himself, develop the ability to experience joy regardless of external circumstances. And, above all, it is important to remember that you can gain control over consciousness only if you radically change your ideas about what is important and what is not. The roots of dissatisfaction with life are within us, and everyone must deal with them personally, on their own.

Reality is nothing more than our experiences, therefore those who can influence what is happening in their consciousness are able to modify it, thereby freeing themselves from the threats and temptations of the outside world. The most important step in freeing yourself from social control is to develop the ability to find joy in every momentary event. If a person learns to enjoy and see meaning in life as such, society will no longer be able to control him. A person no longer needs to fight for a bright future and spend another boring day in the hope that maybe something good will happen tomorrow. Instead, he can simply enjoy life.

Paths to Liberation

Why are we helpless in the face of chaos that prevents happiness? Firstly, wisdom cannot be presented in the form of a formula and systematically applied: each individual must go through this path independently. It is not enough just to know how to do it; you need to do it purposefully, like athletes and musicians who constantly practice what they have learned in theory. Secondly, knowing how to control your mind varies from era to era. For example, the spiritual practices of yoga and Zen Buddhism were once the highest achievements, but, transferred to modern times, they have lost some of their power.

A person can make himself happy or unhappy, regardless of what is actually happening “outside”, simply by changing the content of his consciousness. Information appears in our consciousness because we deliberately concentrate on it. The most important tool in improving the quality of our experience is attention. It is this that selects meaningful information from the great variety of available information. Without it, no work is possible, and how we spend our attention, what thoughts, feelings, memories we let into our consciousness, determines our personal development.

Mental disorder

Whenever incoming information disrupts the order of our consciousness, we find ourselves in a state of internal disorder. The opposite of this state of mental disorder is optimal experience. If the information entering our consciousness is in accordance with our goals, psychic energy flows without any obstacles. If we think for a second about the correctness of our behavior, the answer comes immediately: “Everything is going as it should.” The ability to feel the correctness of actions strengthens us, and we can pay more attention to solving external and internal problems.

Optimal Experience is achieved in situations where the individual can freely direct attention to achieving his goals, because he does not have to deal with internal turmoil and defend himself from any threats. We call this state a state of flow, because at these moments it is as if we are floating with the flow, we are carried by the stream. The state of flow is the opposite of mental turmoil, and those who are able to experience it have greater strength and self-confidence because they can devote more mental energy to achieving their goals.

If a person is able to organize his consciousness so that the state of flow occurs as often as possible, the quality of his life will inevitably begin to improve, because even the most boring activities will take on meaning. Anyone who has experienced the flow state knows that the greatest joy it brings is achieved through strong self-discipline and concentration.

Complication and growth of personality

As a result of experiencing flow, our personality becomes unique because overcoming obstacles inevitably makes a person more capable, more skillful. If we have chosen a goal and concentrated all our mental energy on it, everything we do will bring us joy. The state of flow is important not only because it allows us to enjoy the present, but also because it strengthens our self-confidence, which motivates us to learn new skills and make achievements for the benefit of humanity.

Joy and quality of life

There are two main strategies to improve quality of life. We can try to adjust external conditions to our goals, or we can change our perception of external conditions so that they better suit our goals.

For example, we can increase our sense of security by purchasing a gun and installing a secure lock on the front door, or we can accept that some risk is inevitable and enjoy an uncertain world without letting thoughts of potential threats poison our well-being. None of these strategies will be effective if used alone.

However, people continue to believe that the solution to the problem can be found simply by changing external circumstances. Wealth, power, position in society have become generally accepted symbols of happiness in our culture, and it seems to us that we will achieve happiness as soon as we become the owners of such symbols. Of course, fame, money or physical health can brighten life, but only if all this is harmoniously included in the already existing positive picture of the world.

Pleasure and experiences of joy

Although pleasure is an important component of quality of life, it does not in itself bring happiness. Pleasure helps maintain order, but by itself it cannot create it, that is, transfer consciousness to a new level. There are more important experiences - experiences of joy. They are characterized by forward movement, a sense of novelty, and a sense of achievement.

Joy comes from, for example, a vigorous game of tennis, or reading a book that offers an unexpected perspective on things, or a conversation in which we suddenly express new ideas. After a joyful event, we feel that we have changed, that our Self has grown and become more complex.

A person can experience pleasure without any effort, but it is impossible to experience the joy of playing tennis, reading a book or talking unless one concentrates one's full attention on this activity. This is why joy is so fleeting, and for the same reason pleasure does not lead to personal growth. To gain control over the quality of your life, you need to learn to extract joy from everyday activities.

Complex activity requiring skill

The most frequently cited activities that bring joy are reading and socializing. At first glance, it may seem that the second is an exception to the rule, since it does not require any special skills, but any shy person will tell you that this is not so. Any activity offers a person many opportunities for action and poses a kind of “challenge” to his skills and abilities.

Optimal experiences are not only achieved through leisure activities. Mowing the lawn or waiting at the dentist's office can also bring joy if you restructure your activities with goals and rules that promote a state of flow. The main thing is to remember that no matter what the subject does, his abilities must correspond to the complexity of the task facing him.

Merging action and awareness. Concentration

In optimal experience, a person is so immersed in a task that his activities become almost automatic, and he ceases to be aware of himself as separate from the actions he performs. Although flow states seem spontaneous and effortless, they actually often involve great physical effort or intense mental concentration. The slightest weakening of concentration destroys it.

But while it lasts, consciousness functions smoothly, actions follow one after another. In a state of flow, there is no need to react and analyze, because the action, as if by magic, carries us forward. In everyday life, we often become victims of unpleasant thoughts and worries that unbiddenly invade our consciousness. This is why a state of flow improves the quality of life: focus, coupled with clear goals and immediate feedback, brings order to the mind and conquers mental clutter.

In addition, when a person is truly absorbed in his activity, he does not have free time to analyze any stimuli that are not relevant at the moment. Having clear goals and feedback is essential to the state of flow, so until a person learns to set goals and receive feedback, he will not be able to derive joy from his activities.

Optimal Experience

The most important property of optimal experience is its self-sufficiency; in other words, his main goal is himself.

The optimal experience is very different from the experiences we typically experience in everyday life. Unfortunately, much of what we do has no value in itself. People often feel that time spent at work is wasted, and some are unable to find joy even in their free time. Leisure provides an opportunity to take a break from work, but it is usually a passive absorption of information and does not allow the use of any skills or the exploration of new opportunities. Optimal experience raises the personality to a qualitatively different level: boredom is replaced by joy, helplessness turns into a feeling of personal strength, mental energy is no longer wasted on external goals, but helps strengthen our Self.

The sensations experienced by a person in a state of flow are so strong and beneficial that he returns to this activity again and again, not stopping at possible difficulties and dangers and with little interest in what he will get in the end. Sometimes this state occurs as a result of a favorable set of circumstances, but in most cases it is the result of engaging in a structured activity or a consequence of the individual's ability to induce a state of flow, and often both at the same time.

The main point of flow activity is to find joy. Flow sensations seem to transfer a person into a new reality that has not yet been explored by him, expanding the horizons of his abilities. In other words, they change the personality, making it more complex. Personal development holds the key to understanding the meaning of flow activity.

There are people who, due to the functioning of their psyche, are not capable of experiencing flow. For example, a person who is constantly worried about what others will think of him, afraid of making a bad impression or doing something wrong, is deprived of the ability to feel the joy of being. The same applies to those people who consider everything from the point of view of their personal interests. Both extremes do not allow a person to control his attention; Because of this, he cannot enjoy his activities and loses opportunities for personal growth.

The role of the family in the development of a self-sufficient personality

A family situation that stimulates the development of the ability to achieve a state of flow has five characteristics:

1. Clarity in relationships.
2. Parents' interest in what their child thinks and feelsin the moment, rather than worrying about what college he will go to or whether he will be able to get a well-paying job.
3. Giving children the opportunity to choose.
4. A sense of community, trust between family members, allowing a teenager to put aside psychological defenses and immerse himself in activities that interest him.
5. Setting worthy tasks for children, that is, creating opportunities for their improvement.

The presence of all the above characteristics creates a so-called self-sufficient family context, which best develops the ability to enjoy life.

Flow people

The character traits characteristic of self-sufficient individuals are most clearly manifested when people find themselves in difficult living conditions. Lost in the ice of the Antarctic or sitting in a solitary confinement cell, they turn the bleak reality around them into a field of vigorous activity and struggle that brings joy. According to research, such people survive because they can turn objectively dangerous and oppressive circumstances into a field of exploration and behave as if they are in a state of flow.

They pay close attention to the smallest details of their environment, trying to discover hidden opportunities for action, and also set achievable goals and carefully monitor their progress, after which they raise the stakes, making their tasks more difficult. When they are threatened by hostile circumstances, they regain a sense of control over the situation by finding a new direction for their psychic energy.

Alexander Solzhenitsyn, recalling the time of his imprisonment in Lefortovo prison, told how one of his cellmates, having drawn a map of the world on the prison floor, made an imaginary journey through Asia and Europe to America, walking several kilometers a day. Similar “games” were invented by prisoners at all times.

All these people have one thing in common: the presence of an important goal that stands above personal interests. With enough free mental energy to analyze a situation objectively, they are more likely to discover new opportunities for action.

Probably, it is this trait that is key in the structure of the personality, the goals of which are located in itself. One of the greatest philosophers of our time, Bertrand Russell, described his path to happiness this way: “Gradually I learned to be indifferent to myself and my shortcomings. My attention became increasingly focused on external objects: world events, various fields of knowledge, people to whom I felt affection.” It is perhaps difficult to find a more capacious description of how you can become a self-sufficient person.

Body, Consciousness and Flow

If you learn to control the abilities of your body and organize physical sensations, mental disorder in your consciousness will give way to joyful harmony. But the body does not create a state of flow through movement alone. The participation of consciousness is always necessary.

Even the simplest form of physical activity, such as walking, can be turned into a complex flow activity, almost an art, because walking can have a great variety of purposes.

Greater joy can also be felt when simply talking with friends, working in the garden, or doing some other favorite activity. All these types of activities do not require special material costs, but mental energy must be invested in them, so they bring us a feeling of harmony, while activities that require external resources often involve attention to a lesser extent and therefore do not bring such satisfaction.

Sex like a flow

When people think of joy, sex is usually the first thing that comes to mind. But the same sexual act can cause feelings of pain, resentment, bitterness or fear, it can be perceived neutrally, it can make one feel joy or ecstasy - depending on how it relates to the goals of the individual. Essentially, to enjoy sex you just need to want it and be physically healthy, but if you don't transform sex into a joyful activity, it will quickly become boring, a meaningless ritual or an addiction. One of the forms of sexuality development is mastering the technique of sex.

It is also important that, in addition to his own pleasure and enjoyment of the process, the lover feels genuine care for his partner. Relationships in a couple, in order to bring joy, must become more and more complex; partners must learn to find new opportunities in themselves and in each other. Sexuality, like any other aspect of being human, is a joy if we are willing to take control and complicate it.

Flow through sensations

Vision is most often used as a remote sensory system. The ability to see, however, can also provide us with a constant experience of joy. One of the best ways to develop perceptual skills is through the visual arts. The same can be said about music: it helps to organize the mind of the listener and thereby reduces mental clutter. Music can not only relieve us of boredom and anxiety, but if taken seriously, it can create flow experiences.

Food, like sex, is one of the fundamental pleasures inherent in our nervous system. But many people still barely notice what they put into their mouths, thereby missing out on a rich source of joy. To transform a biological need into a flow experience, we need to pay attention to what we eat. Developing good taste in food, like any other skill, requires an investment of mental energy, but this energy investment will return to you a hundredfold in the form of more complex, multifaceted sensations.

Stream of thought

Alone, without the need to concentrate, we find that the mind begins to descend into chaos. If a person does not know how to voluntarily organize his consciousness, attention will inevitably stop on some problem that is tormenting him. To avoid this, people try to occupy their minds with any available information, as long as it distracts their attention from turning inward and fixating on unpleasant thoughts. This is why a huge amount of time is spent in front of the TV, although this activity rarely brings joy.

A much better way to deal with chaos in the mind is to independently control your mental processes. One of the simplest ways to structure consciousness is dreams and fantasies in the form of replaying some sequence of events in the mind: they help to find the optimal strategy of behavior in a given situation, to see new alternatives. This in turn helps increase the complexity of consciousness. Also among the many intellectual activities, the most frequently mentioned flow activities are reading and solving intellectual riddles.

"Mother of Knowledge"

The most natural way to develop your memory is to pick an area that really interests you and start paying attention to key facts and figures. It is up to you to decide what will be stored in your memory, then you will control the information, and the whole process of memorizing will not be an imposed routine, but a pleasant experience.

Play on words

A rich vocabulary and fluency of speech are considered among the most important qualities of a business person; the ability to speak enriches interactions. The now almost lost art of conversation holds possibilities for improving the quality of life, and anyone can learn it. The main creative use of language is poetry.

It allows the mind to store experiences in a modified and concentrated form and is therefore ideal for organizing consciousness. Writing prose has the same advantages.

Friendship with history

One of the most enjoyable ways to organize your mind and bring joy is to collect, record and store information about a variety of great and small events. Having an organized record of the past can improve our quality of life. The simplest thing is to start by keeping a personal diary. Once a person takes the trouble to figure out which aspects of the past are of interest to him and decides to explore them more deeply, focusing on the details, the study of history turns into an inexhaustible source of flow experiences.

The joys of science

Today's science is like an expensive conveyor belt for the production of knowledge. But discoveries are still often made by people who are simply sitting on a bench near the market, lost in their own thoughts and not noticing anything around them. It is important to remember that many great scientists did not pursue science for government grants or fame, but because they found joy in working with the methods they invented. The thought process that makes science attractive is accessible to everyone. It’s worth doing it primarily because it’s a great way to bring order to your mind.

Work like a flow

Work has a huge impact on overall life satisfaction. If a person experiences a state of flow at work, they are more likely to be able to improve their overall quality of life. Free labor, which requires skill, contributes to the complexity of the personality, while unskilled work performed under coercion only increases internal mental disorder. In order to avoid the latter, you need to focus your attention on the opportunities for action offered by the environment and enrich the content of your work.

Another approach is to change the work itself so that it promotes a state of flow: the more the work resembles a team game, the more joy the person doing it will experience, regardless of his level of development. To improve your quality of life through work, you need to restructure your activities so that they resemble flow activities as closely as possible, and hone your craft by setting achievable goals. This can greatly increase the number of optimal experiences in our lives.

Waste of time

Although people often want to finish work quickly and go home, they often have no idea how to spend their free time. Instead of using our physical and mental resources to enter a state of flow, most of us spend many hours in front of the television, watching actors and athletes. Meanwhile, mass culture and mass art absorb a huge amount of our psychic energy, giving nothing in return, leaving us even more devastated than before. Until a person takes responsibility for organizing both his work and free time, both will bring him disappointment.

The joy of connecting with yourself and others

Another factor influencing quality of life is relationships with other people. If we learn to transform them into flow experiences, our overall quality of life will improve significantly. But we also value privacy and often want to be alone with ourselves. At the same time, it often turns out that as soon as this desire comes true, we plunge into despondency, feel abandoned and begin to suffer because there is nothing to do. The fear of being alone is one of the most powerful human fears. It is important to realize that until a person learns to tolerate loneliness and even enjoy it, it will be very difficult for him to solve problems that require full concentration.

However, the most painful events tend to also be related to relationships. Like everything that truly matters, relationships can make us happy if we live in harmony with others, but if conflicts arise, we become unhappy. Anyone who learns to get along well with others will undoubtedly experience a significant improvement in their overall quality of life.

The pain of loneliness

Nothing spoils the mood more than being alone when there is nothing to do. In this state it is very difficult to maintain order in the mind. When there is no external stimulus, attention begins to wander and chaos reigns in our thoughts, as a result of which we plunge into a state of mental entropy. Worries about personal life, health, family and work are constantly present on the periphery of consciousness, waiting for the moment when there is nothing to concentrate on. Once the mind relaxes, potential problems are right there. It is for this reason that television has turned out to be a blessing for so many people: the flickering of the screen brings some order to the mind, and the information does not allow unpleasant thoughts to enter the mind.

The possibility of development, which allows one to simultaneously enjoy life, is to create order of a higher level out of mental disorder, which is an inevitable condition of existence. This means that every new challenge that life throws at us should not be perceived as something that must be avoided at all costs, but as an opportunity for learning and self-improvement. Only those who find a way to organize their attention and prevent internal disorder from destroying their mind can survive alone. A person can engage in flow activities in almost any conditions, but until he learns to enjoy solitude, a significant part of his mental energy will be spent on hopeless attempts to avoid it.

The Joy of Friendship

Friendship brings us joy, and this requires all the same conditions that are present in other stream activities. It is necessary not only to have common goals and give each other feedback, but also to solve new problems in interaction with another person. They may consist in simply learning more about your friend, discovering new facets of his individuality, and in the process, learning more deeply about yourself. Friendship brings joy only if we use the opportunities for self-expression inherent in it.

If a person surrounds himself with “friends” who simply reinforce his social status, without being interested in his true thoughts and dreams and without inspiring him to do new things, he deprives himself of the fullness of the feelings of true friendship. Friendships rarely last on their own; they need to be nurtured and worked on just as hard as your career or family life.

Coping with stress

A catastrophe that prevents the achievement of the main goal in life can crush a person, forcing him to direct all his mental energy to protecting his remaining goals from further blows of fate. But it can also set a new, clearer goal - to overcome misfortune.

If a person chooses the second path, his quality of life will not necessarily suffer as a result of the tragedy. An event that seems catastrophic can enrich the lives of those affected in unexpected ways. There are two main ways to respond to stress - “mature defense” and “neurotic (immature) defense.” Let's say you were fired from your job. You may withdraw into yourself, start waking up late, deny the event that happened and avoid thinking about it. You may also try to take out negative emotions on family and friends or drown your frustrations in alcohol. All of these actions would be examples of immature defense.

Another response is to temporarily suppress your anger and fear, analyze the situation logically, and reframe the problem so that it is easier to solve. For example, you will find a job where your skills are more in demand, or you will learn something else. In this case, you will resort to mature defense.

The ability to find something positive in adversity is a rare gift. Those who possess it are called "survivors"; They are also said to have steadfastness or courage. It is not surprising that people value this ability over other virtues because it promotes survival and helps improve quality of life.

Those who know how to transform a hopeless situation into new, controllable flow activities experience challenges with joy and emerge stronger.

Such a transformation involves three main steps:

1. Unselfish self-confidence. A person feels himself a part of what is happening around him and tries to do everything possible within the framework of the system in which he must act. If your car won't start, no matter how much you yell at it, nothing will change. A more reasonable approach is to admit the obvious: the car doesn’t care that you urgently need to go to an important meeting. Either call a taxi or cancel things.

2. Focusing attention on the outside world. By paying attention to what is happening around us, we reduce the destructive effects of stress. A person who pays attention to the world around him becomes part of it, integrates into the system, connecting himself with it through psychic energy. This, in turn, allows him to better understand the properties of the system and find better ways to adapt to a stressful situation. If you stay in touch with what is happening, you can see new opportunities that will allow you to respond truly effectively.

3. Discovery of new solutions. You can focus on obstacles and remove them - this approach is called "direct". The second way involves concentrating on the situation as a whole, thinking about whether it is possible to set other, more appropriate goals, and find new solutions. If you are fired, you can go prove your boss wrong, or find something to do in another department. There are opportunities for growth in almost every situation. But in order for such a transformation to become possible, a person must be ready to perceive unexpected opportunities.

Self-sufficient personality: results

A healthy, rich and powerful person has no advantage over a sick, poor and weak person when it comes to establishing control over consciousness. A self-sufficient person is distinguished by the ability to easily turn potential threats into tasks, the solution of which brings joy and maintains internal harmony. This is a person who never experiences boredom, rarely worries, is included in what is happening and experiences a state of flow most of the time. The main goals of a self-sufficient personality are formed in her consciousness in the process of evaluating experiences, that is, they are created by herself.

The rules by which you can develop the qualities of such a personality are simple and directly related to the flow model. Briefly, they look like this:

1. Set goals and pay attention to the results of your actions.
2. Be completely immersed in the activity.
3. Pay attention to what is happening around you.
4. Learn to enjoy momentary experiences.

Creating meaning

The ability to experience a state of flow in one area does not mean that a person will be able to achieve it always and in everything. Until the activities and hobbies that bring us satisfaction are connected together by a higher meaning, we are not protected from the invasion of chaos. In order not to lose the ability to have optimal experiences, a person needs to take one more, final, step in establishing control over consciousness.

This step involves turning your entire life into one flow experience. If a person sets himself a sufficiently complex goal from which all other goals follow logically, and if he directs all his energy to developing the skills necessary to achieve this goal, then feelings and actions will come into a state of harmony and the disparate parts of life will come together. Everything that such a person does has meaning in the present and is connected with the past and future. This is how you can give meaning to your entire life.

Developing Determination

Any goal must be taken seriously, and any task requires certain actions. There is a relationship between the value of a goal and the effort required to achieve it. Fulfilling a goal requires a lot of effort, but it is this effort that gives meaning to achieving the goal.

Self-knowledge is a way by which a person can organize his goals. Internal conflict arises because there are too many conflicting desires and goals competing for psychic energy. The only way to overcome the psychological conflict between different goals competing for a person's attention is to separate important goals from unimportant ones and build a hierarchy of priorities between them.

Before investing a significant amount of mental energy into one goal or another, it is worth answering the questions: do I really want to do this? Does this bring me joy? Will I enjoy it in the future? Is this case worth the price that will have to be paid? If an individual has not bothered to figure out what he really wants, and his attention is so absorbed in external goals that he does not notice his own feelings, he will not be able to meaningfully plan his actions.

Return of Harmony

The essence of the strategy through which you can find the meaning of existence is to look for ways to organize your consciousness in the experience accumulated by past generations. Culture has accumulated enormous knowledge, ready for use, and it is available to anyone who wants to create harmony out of chaos.

However, most people ignore these achievements, although to do so is the same as rebuilding the entire edifice of human culture with each generation. No person in his right mind would want to reinvent the wheel, fire, electricity and a million other objects that we gain knowledge about through learning.

In the same way, disregard for the information accumulated by our ancestors and the desire to independently discover worthy life goals is a manifestation of blind arrogance. The chances of success in such an undertaking are about the same as trying to build an electron microscope without tools or knowledge of physics. If we better understand why we are the way we are, and understand the origin of instinctual drives, social stereotypes, cultural differences - in short, all those factors that influence the formation of consciousness - it will be easier for us to direct our energy where it should be.

Most people who discover complex life topics recall admiring a person or historical figure who served as a role model for them. Some saw new possibilities for action in the book that delighted them. The best works of literature provide many examples of lives built on the pursuit of a worthy and meaningful goal. Many who have faced questions about the meaning of existence have regained hope after learning that others before them have tried to solve the same problems and were able to do so.

Having learned to separate ourselves from others, we must learn to accept the world as it is, without losing our hard-won individuality. We must believe that the Universe is a system governed by general laws with which we will have to reconcile our dreams and desires. Once we accept that we need to collaborate with the world around us, rather than control it, we are likely to experience the relief familiar to an exile returning home. The problem of the meaning of life will be solved when our personal goals merge with the flow of existence.

“A book about the dangers of “healthy eating.” Or how to live 100 years"

• Flow is a state of optimal human experience, complete merging with one’s work. Brings a feeling of inspiration and special joy.
• Despite differences in cultural levels, all people describe the state of joy in approximately the same way.
• People who have learned to control their experiences can influence the quality of their lives.

Three decades ago, a term was born in psychology and quickly gained popularity, which evokes associations with anything but academic science - “flow”. This is a state of optimal human experience - complete merging with one’s work, absorption in it, when you don’t feel time, yourself, when instead of fatigue there is a constant surge of energy...

Psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi discovered it while studying the lives of creative individuals, but “flow” is not the exclusive property of some special people. “Flow” does not descend upon us as grace, but is generated by our meaningful efforts; it is in our hands. And the state of “flow” is one of the most beautiful things in our life.

Mastery over fate

We have all experienced moments when we feel not the blows of nameless forces, but control over our actions, mastery over our own destiny. In these rare moments we feel inspired, especially joyful. These feelings remain in our hearts for a long time and serve as a guide for our lives.

When a sailor, holding the right course, feels the wind whistling in his ears, the sailboat glides over the waves, the sails, sides, wind and waves merge into a harmony that vibrates in the veins of the sailor. When the artist feels that the colors on the canvas, having come to life, are attracted to each other and a new living form is suddenly born before the eyes of the amazed master. When a father sees his child return his smile for the first time.

This, however, does not only happen when external circumstances are favorable. Those who survived concentration camps or faced mortal danger say that often, despite the seriousness of the situation, they somehow felt especially fully and vividly about ordinary events, such as the sound of a bird singing in the forest, the completion of hard work, or the taste of sharing a loaf of bread with a comrade. .

Happiness

Happiness is not something that happens to us. This is not the result of luck or fluke. It cannot be bought with money or achieved by force. It depends not on the events happening around us, but on how we interpret them.

Happiness is a state for which everyone must prepare, cultivate and store it within themselves. People who have learned to control their experiences will be able to influence the quality of their lives. This is the only way each of us can get closer to being happy.

Optimal Experience

Contrary to popular belief, the best moments of our lives do not come to us in a state of relaxation or passive perception. Of course, relaxation can also be a pleasure, for example after hard work. But the best moments usually happen when the body and mind are stretched to the limit in the effort to achieve something difficult and valuable.

Both the optimal experience itself and the conditions for its occurrence are the same for all cultures and peoples

We ourselves create the optimal experience: when a child, with trembling fingers, places the last block on top of the tallest tower he has ever built, when a swimmer makes his last effort to break his record, when a violinist masters the most difficult musical passage.

For each of us there are thousands of opportunities and tasks through which we can reveal ourselves. The immediate sensations experienced at these moments do not have to be pleasant. During the decisive swim, an athlete's muscles may ache from tension, his lungs may burst from lack of air, he may faint from fatigue - and yet these will be the best moments of his life.

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The first surprise was the high similarity of the sensations experienced by people when they were doing what they loved and they were good at it. Thus, a swimmer crossing the English Channel experienced feelings very similar to those experienced by a chess player during a tense tournament, or to those experienced by a mountain climber negotiating a difficult section of rock on the way to the top.

A musician working on a complex musical passage, a black teenager from the poor neighborhoods of New York participating in the finals of a basketball championship, and many, many others, spoke about similar impressions.

Despite differences in cultural levels and degrees of economic well-being, people described the state of joy in the same way

The second surprise was that, despite the differences in cultural levels, degrees of economic well-being, social class, gender, and age of these people, they all described the state of joy in approximately the same way. Their activities were quite different: an elderly Korean man meditated, a young Japanese man rode a motorcycle with a gang of rockers, a resident of an Alpine village cared for animals, but the descriptions of their experiences were almost identical.

Moreover, when explaining why this activity brings them joy, people pointed to similar reasons. We can say with confidence: both the optimal experience itself and the conditions for its occurrence are the same for all cultures and peoples.

Joy in everyday life

During the development of mankind, each culture developed certain protective mechanisms that made it easier for a person to exist. This includes religion, art, and philosophy. One of their tasks was to help a person cope with the destructive effects of universal chaos, to help believe that a person can control what happens to him, to help him feel satisfied with life and destiny.

However, such mechanisms provide only temporary protection. Over time, established religious beliefs wear out, losing their ability to provide the peace of mind we need.

The key to happiness lies in the ability to control yourself, your feelings and impressions

Deprived of spiritual support, people often find a solution to the problem of life satisfaction in collecting all kinds of pleasures and entertainment, based on genetic programs or determined by society. Many people today go through life driven by a desire for wealth, power or sex.

However, quality of life cannot be improved in this way. The key to happiness lies in the ability to control yourself, your feelings and impressions, thus finding joy in the everyday life around us.

Give meaning

In order to turn your entire life into one bright and exciting “streaming” experience, it is not enough just to learn to control the content of your consciousness at each given moment. It is also necessary to have a global system of interconnected life goals that can give meaning to each specific activity that a person is engaged in.

If you simply switch from one type of flow activity to another without any connection between them and without any global perspective, then it is very likely that, when you look back at your life, you will not find any meaning in it. The goal of the “flow” theory is to teach a person to achieve harmony in all his endeavors.

Goals are in yourself

We call an “autotelic personality” a person who is able to turn real or potential threats into enjoyable tasks. This is a person who never gets bored, rarely worries, pays attention to what is happening around him, and having taken up any task, he is easily carried away by it, entering a state of flow.

The term “autotelic personality” itself means “a person whose goals are located within himself”; it reflects the self-sufficiency, autonomy of the individual, his ability to independently set goals. For most people, goals, as a rule, are set by biological instincts or formed by society, that is, the sources of goals are “outside”.

For an autotelic personality, most of the goals stem from a conscious assessment of one’s experiences and reflect its true needs. The autotelic personality is able to transform the chaos of the external environment into the experience of “flow”.

Living “in spite of”

Examples of how people find “flow” in life, despite the misfortunes that befall them, were collected and processed by Fausto Massimini, a professor at the University of Milan. One of the groups he studied included young people who had become paralyzed as a result of injuries or accidents. One of the most surprising results of his research was that even years after their accident, these people had ambivalent assessments of the tragic incident that changed their lives.

On the one hand, it was a tragedy. But on the other hand, it was she who opened up for them an unknown, much more perfect world - the world of “limited choice.” Those patients who were able to cope with new tasks and problems that arose as a result of their injury spoke of the emergence of clear and distinct goals in their lives that were not there before. At the same time, young people felt real pride from the fact that they had learned to live not “thanks to”, but “in spite of.”

Eight Components of Flow

When people describe their experiences of moments of joy, they mention at least one of the following components (and often all eight):

• The feasibility of the activity, the achievability of the goal, the solvability of the task.
• The ability to concentrate on what a person is doing.
• Clear goals.
• Clear and immediate feedback to correct movement towards the goal.
• Complete absorption in the problem, liberation of consciousness from the worries and anxieties of everyday life.
• A feeling of complete control over what is happening.
• A person’s lack of thoughts about himself in the flow (however, after a person has been in the “flow,” his individuality becomes stronger, more vibrant).
• The feeling of the passage of time in the process of “flow” can vary widely: seconds drag on like hours, hours fly by like seconds.

The combination of all these conditions causes that feeling of deep joy, for the sake of which people who experience it are ready to spend an incredible amount of effort and time again and again.

About the expert

The author of the term and theory of “flow”, one of the most authoritative and respected psychologists in the world. Professor at Claremont College, author of a dozen books, including the famous Flow: the Psychology of Optimal Experience (Harper and Row, 1990).

Description from the publisher

Quote

The book “Flow” represents a very non-trivial approach to the problems of human emotional life and behavior regulation. The joy of flow is the highest reward that nature can bestow upon us for striving to solve more and more complex problems. Unlike the standard of living, the quality of experience can be increased by paying only one currency - an investment of attention and organized effort; no other currency is quoted in the realm of flow. Csikszentmihalyi reminds us: happiness is not something that just happens to us, it is both an art and a science, it is something that requires effort and a kind of qualification. “The key to happiness lies in the ability to control yourself, your feelings and impressions, thus finding joy in the everyday life around us.”
Dmitry Leontiev, Doctor of Psychology.

What is this book about

While researching creative individuals, the author found in his research that they are happy because they experience a state of flow during the process of insight. But the flow is not the exclusive property of some special people. The author builds a detailed, harmonious and experimentally confirmed theory, at the center of which is the idea of ​​flow. This is a state of complete fusion with your work, absorption by it, when you do not feel time, yourself, when instead of fatigue there is a constant surge of energy.

Why the book is worth reading

The state of flow is one of the most beautiful things in our lives. And the book will lead the reader to this state.
It turns out that happiness does not descend upon us as grace, but is generated by our meaningful efforts, it is in our hands.
A rare example of high science serving an ordinary person.

Who is this book for?

For everyone who strives to truly live this life happily. For those who are interested in psychology as a discipline, who are, in principle, attracted by the phenomenon of happiness, and for all those who sorely lack this very happiness in their own lives. Indeed, in a state of flow, pleasure merges with effort and meaning, giving rise to an energizing, boundless state of joy.

about the author

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi - psychologist, professor emeritus and director of the Center for Quality of Life Research at Claremont Graduate University (USA), member of the American Academy of Education, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the National Academy of Leisure Studies, author of about 20 books, the most famous of which is “Flow” - translated in 30 languages. Lives and works in the USA.

To the question “Are you happy?” most people are unlikely to give a definitive answer. For each person, the concept of happiness includes a number of certain factors. This suggests that the state of well-being is subjective. But is there a happiness that will have the characteristics of inalienability and transcendence? Psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi answers this question.

The theory of flow experience and modern psychological knowledge

Most psychologists, in developing their theories, relied on material obtained from unhealthy neurotic patients. For example, this is the well-known psychoanalysis of Freud.

The work that Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi created is “Flow. Psychology of optimal experience" - reflects one of the most authoritative concepts in modern psychological science. Csikszentmihalyi, like Maslow, is the scientist who put the healthy person at the forefront. Flow theory has applications in a variety of fields. This is clinical psychotherapy, increasing efficiency in educational processes, correctional work with juvenile offenders.

What has a reasonable person missed?

Nowadays, many, not without reason, predict the end of European civilization. On the other hand, we often forget the scale of the progress we have been able to achieve. Csikszentmihalyi emphasizes: our capabilities are disproportionately greater than those that people had, for example, during the times of Ancient Rome. What was it that man could not achieve? The answer is simple: he failed to become happy. Moreover, there is not even any progress in this regard.

Ruthless statistics show: in civilized countries, starting from the nineteenth century, there has been a gradual increase in the number of suicides.

The state of well-being and modern culture

In his book, the scientist comes to the conclusion that happiness is a subjective concept. Satisfying some needs, a person inevitably faces the fact that new ones take their place. Well-being always slips out of your hands. Each culture sought to solve this problem in its own way. For example, with the help of faith in God. But how many people do we know who she made happy? When beliefs are defeated, their place is taken by much-coveted goods: material wealth, power, sex. But they don’t bring peace either.

So, we have learned to satisfy our physical needs, but not our spiritual ones. It is obvious that happiness is largely determined by the conditions that life presents to us. A person without a roof over his head is unlikely to feel content. People living in an unstable political environment will not be particularly enthusiastic either. And, of course, those who have problems in family life cannot be fully happy.

What is a flow state and its features

But in this way, people a priori cannot find peace? God gives everyone his own cross, which most often seems overwhelming.

Csikszentmihalyi was able to answer this question. What a person needs to catch the bird of subjective happiness is not a hothouse existence with a complete absence of problems. And not even a state of relaxation. What can we say if 1.4% of those who commit suicide do it because of... satiety with life.

No. Happiness brings something completely different; the scientist gives this state the name “flow”. The book (Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi claims to be the result of twenty-five years of research) is about how anyone can achieve it. Paradoxically, it is even akin to pain. This is the pursuit of a goal.

Should we feel comfortable pursuing it? And the answer to this question is also negative. It is unlikely that a runner, approaching the finish line with all his might, feels at home.

The state of control and power over the events of one’s life is described by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. Flow is the point at which a person surpasses his strength; the point where you can find true happiness.

How does human consciousness work?

The truth of our existence is the fact that we will never achieve complete security and fulfillment of all desires, says Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. Flow differs from a state of temporary contentment in that the latter is caused by external factors. For some, obstacles are something that can completely destroy them. For others, it is a stimulus that provokes maximum concentration and control of perception.

Consciousness behaves selectively in relation to the entire variety of surrounding information. It “snatches” from it those pieces that correspond to its internal content. Concentrating on the negative only leads to its growth. As a result, a person enters a state of internal disorder or entropy, which is the opposite of happiness.

How to get into flow state?

The condition for creating flow is immersion in activity, says Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. In seeking flow, a person needs to be able to identify activities that both match their abilities and present a challenge. There are countless types of such activities. This could be anything: competing in a variety of sports, honing skills in the fine arts, working in the field of entrepreneurship, says Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. The psychology of flow has an important aspect: the state of true happiness is impossible without intense effort.

Although it can arise spontaneously, in most cases it cannot be avoided without effort, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi warns us. The stream is not kind to those who are lazy.

So, satisfying basic human needs is an important part of life, but inner well-being is in a completely different area. “Flow” is a book (Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi emphasizes its universality) that can teach everyone to be happy: from the cleaning lady to the shareholders of multinational companies.

Scientific editor Dmitry Leontyev

Project Manager I. Seregina

Corrector M. Milovidova

layout designer E. Sentsova

Cover designer Yu. Buga

© Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, 1990

© Translation, preface. LLC "Research and Production Company "Smysl", 2011

© Edition in Russian, design. Alpina Non-Fiction LLC, 2011

All rights reserved. No part of the electronic copy of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, including posting on the Internet or corporate networks, for private or public use without the written permission of the copyright owner.

Dedicated to Isabella, Mark and Christopher

How to forge happiness: secrets of mastery

(preface by the editor of the Russian edition)

He is a truly wise man. Slow, although sometimes decisive. Absorbed in himself, although periodically blooming with a radiant smile. He weighs words and avoids categorical judgments, but speaks and writes surprisingly clearly and transparently. Interested more in others than in himself, but loving life in its most varied manifestations.

Today he is one of the most authoritative and respected psychologists. He is known and appreciated all over the world, and not only by his colleagues. A few years ago, the popular anthology How to Make a Life was published in the United States, offering lessons in wisdom through the lives of prominent thinkers and writers of the past and present, starting with Plato and Aristotle. Csikszentmihalyi is among the heroes of this book, positioned between Salinger and Disney. The business community treats him with great attention and respect; His current primary affiliation is the Peter Drucker School of Management at Claremont Graduate University, California. At the turn of the century, Csikszentmihalyi, along with his colleague Martin Seligman, became the founder of positive psychology - a new movement in psychology that aims to study the patterns of a good, meaningful and dignified life.

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi was born in 1934 on the shores of the Adriatic, in territory that then belonged to Italy, and is now part of Croatia. His father was a Hungarian consul, after the collapse of fascism he became ambassador to Italy, and when the communists who seized power in Hungary in 1948 sent him into retirement, he decided to stay with his family in Italy, where Mihai spent his childhood and school years. Having become interested in psychology and not finding a suitable university in Italy, he flew across the ocean to get a psychological education in the USA, and after graduating from the University of Chicago, he remained to live and work in this country, where he spent his entire professional career. He is the author of one and a half dozen books, including: “The Meaning of Things: Home Symbols of Our I", "Creative vision: psychology of aesthetic attitude", "Personality in evolution", "Being a teenager", "Becoming an adult", "Creativity", etc.

However, the most important book that brought him worldwide fame is “Flow”. Some time after its release in 1990, it received brilliant advertising from such impressed readers as US President Bill Clinton, Speaker of Congress Newt Gingrich and British Prime Minister Tony Blair. It is included in lists such as “The 100 Best Business Books of All Time.” It belongs to the rare category of “long-lasting” bestsellers. Having gained popularity among the mass audience immediately after its release, it continues to be republished almost every year and has already been translated into 30 languages.

This is an amazing book. Before I undertook to edit its translation, I had read it at least twice, used it in lectures and publications, and certainly appreciated it, which was facilitated by my personal acquaintance with the author and joint work with him. But only now, slowly and painstakingly going through word by word, did I experience genuine, incomparable pleasure from the way it was written - there are no gaps between thought and word, every word fits into the next one, every phrase stands in its place , and in this text there is not a single crack where one could insert a knife blade. This is a sign of that rare book, the words of which do not play their own game, leading a cheerful round dance or, on the contrary, folding into a reinforced concrete structure, but directly and accurately express a clear and well-thought-out picture of the world. Every word is not accidental, it contains the pulse of a living thought, and therefore this entire book is like a living organism: it has structure, order, unpredictability, tension, tone and life.

What is it about? About many things. If we approach it formally, it’s about happiness, about quality of life, about optimal experiences. The category of experience is indeed one of the central ones for Csikszentmihalyi (under the influence of the famous American philosopher of the early last century, John Dewey), and he convincingly shows the emptiness and meaninglessness, on the one hand, of the brilliance of fame and material prosperity, on the other hand, of noble slogans and goals, if they do not give rise to a person’s feeling of inner uplift, inspiration and fullness of life. And vice versa, the presence of such experiences may well make a person happy who is deprived of many of the material benefits and pleasures that are familiar to us.

Happiness and pleasure are two different things, and in this Csikszentmihalyi repeats the revelations of many outstanding philosophers, from Aristotle to Nikolai Berdyaev and Viktor Frankl. But he doesn’t just repeat, but builds a detailed, harmonious and experimentally confirmed theory, at the center of which is the idea of ​​“autotelic experiences” or, simply put, flow experiences. This is a state of complete fusion with your work, absorption by it, when you do not feel time, yourself, when instead of fatigue there is a constant surge of energy... Csikszentmihalyi discovered it in his studies of creative individuals, but flow is not the exclusive property of some special people. For three decades now, research and discussions around this phenomenon have been ongoing, new books are being published, but one thing is clear: the state of flow is one of the most beautiful things in our lives. And most importantly - unlike other similar states that have from time to time come into the focus of psychologists' attention (for example, peak experiences, happiness, subjective well-being), the flow does not descend on us as grace, but is generated by our meaningful efforts, it is in our hands. In it, pleasure merges with effort and meaning, generating an energizing, active state of joy.

Therefore, flow is directly related to personality characteristics, the level of its development and maturity. Csikszentmihalyi recalls that when he was a child, he found himself in exile, while in his native Hungary everything was collapsing, one system and way of life was replaced by another. In his own words, he observed the disintegration of the world in which at the beginning of his life he was quite comfortably rooted. And he was surprised how many adults whom he had previously known as successful and self-confident people suddenly became helpless and lost their presence of mind, deprived of the social support that they had in the old stable world. Deprived of work, money, status, they literally turned into some kind of empty shells. But there were also people who maintained their integrity and purposefulness, despite all the chaos that surrounded them, and in many ways they served as an example for others, a support that helped others not to lose hope. And the most interesting thing is that these were not the men and women from whom this could be expected. It was impossible to predict which people would survive in this difficult situation. These were neither the most respected, nor the most educated, nor the most experienced members of society. Since then, he has wondered what the sources of strength are for those people who remain resilient in this chaos. He considers his entire future life to be a search for an answer to these questions, which he was unable to find either in philosophical and religious books that were too subjective and dependent on faith, or in psychological studies that were too simplified and limited in their approach. These were men who maintained their resilience and dignity through the storms of World War II, who did something impossible, and in this could be found the key to what man is capable of at his best.