Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi: Flow, the secret to happiness

Summary

The speaker reflects on the impact of World War II on adults' ability to find happiness, which sparked a lifelong quest to understand what makes life fulfilling. Discovering psychology through a chance encounter with Carl Jung, the narrative explores the concept of 'flow'—the state of complete immersion in an activity that leads to a sense of ecstasy and fulfillment. The speaker's research delves into the conditions that facilitate flow, revealing that it transcends culture and is characterized by intense focus, clarity, and a loss of self-consciousness. The talk encourages finding ways to incorporate more flow experiences into everyday life for a more meaningful existence.

Takeaways

• 🌏 The speaker's childhood was deeply affected by World War II, which sparked an interest in understanding what makes life worth living.
• 📚 Early attempts to find meaning in life included reading philosophy, engaging with art and religion, and eventually discovering psychology.
• 🎓 The journey into psychology began by chance, through attending a lecture about the psychological impact of war and the human psyche's projection of flying saucers.
• 🔍 The speaker's research focused on understanding the roots of happiness and the disconnect between material wealth and life satisfaction.
• 📈 A key finding was that beyond a certain income level, increases in personal wealth do not correlate with increased happiness.
• 🎼 The speaker explored happiness in the context of creative individuals, such as artists and scientists, and their experiences of 'flow' during moments of creation.
• 🎭 The concept of 'ecstasy' was introduced, describing a state where one steps into an alternative reality, detached from everyday routines.
• 🏆 Success in creative fields often involves a 'flow experience,' where the individual is so engaged in the task that their sense of self fades away.
• 🏋️‍♂️ The flow experience requires a high level of skill and technical knowledge, typically acquired over a decade of immersion in a field.
• 🌐 Flow experiences are not limited to the arts; they can also occur in sports, business, and various other domains of life.
• 📊 The conditions for flow include intense focus, clarity of goals, immediate feedback, a balance between challenge and skills, and a loss of self-consciousness.

Q & A

What was the speaker's age during World War II?

The speaker was between seven and 10 years old during World War II.

Why did the speaker become interested in understanding what contributes to a life worth living?

The speaker became interested after witnessing how few adults could maintain a happy life after their jobs, homes, and security were destroyed by the war.

How did the speaker initially encounter psychology?

The speaker encountered psychology by chance at a lecture about flying saucers in Zurich, which was actually about the psychological impact of war on Europeans.

Who was the lecturer that introduced the speaker to psychology?

The lecturer was Carl Jung, whose work the speaker had not previously known about.

What is the general finding regarding happiness and personal income in the United States since 1956?

The general finding is that about 30 percent of people surveyed say their life is very happy, a percentage that has not changed despite personal income more than doubling during that period.

What does the speaker suggest about the relationship between material well-being and happiness after a certain point?

The speaker suggests that after a certain basic point, which is just a few thousand dollars above the minimum poverty level, increases in material well-being do not seem to affect how happy people are.

What did the speaker study to understand the roots of happiness?

The speaker studied creative people, such as artists and scientists, to understand what made them feel that their life was meaningful and worth doing.

What is the term used to describe the state of being completely engaged in an activity to the point where one loses awareness of self?

The term used to describe this state is 'flow experience'.

What are the seven conditions that seem to be present when a person is in flow, according to the speaker's research?

The seven conditions are intense focus, a sense of ecstasy and clarity, immediate feedback, a balance between perceived challenges and skills, a loss of self-consciousness, a transformation of time, and a feeling of being part of something larger.

How does the speaker describe the experience of being in the 'flow' during creative activities?

The speaker describes it as an effortless, spontaneous feeling where one enters an ecstatic state and loses awareness of self, feeling as if they are part of a larger reality.

What is the main challenge the speaker is trying to address in their research?

The main challenge the speaker is trying to address is how to increase the amount of everyday life spent in the 'flow' channel, where activities are worth doing for their own sake.

Outlines

00:00

🌏 Impact of War and the Quest for Happiness

The speaker reflects on their childhood during World War II in Europe, observing the adults' inability to cope with the war's devastation and their loss of normalcy. This experience sparked an interest in understanding what makes a life worth living. The speaker's early attempts to find answers led them to philosophy, art, and religion, but it was a chance encounter with a lecture by Carl Jung that shifted their focus to psychology. The lecture discussed how Europeans projected their war trauma into the sky as 'flying saucers,' and the speaker was intrigued by Jung's work, leading them to study psychology in the United States. The speaker also discusses a consistent finding in happiness research: beyond a certain income level, increases in personal wealth do not correlate with increased happiness, suggesting that material well-being has diminishing returns on life satisfaction.

05:03

🎼 The Ecstasy of Creative Flow in Art and Music

This section delves into the speaker's research on what makes the lives of creative individuals, such as artists and scientists, meaningful. The speaker recounts an interview with a leading composer who described his composing process as an ecstatic state, an alternative reality where one's ordinary routines are transcended. The speaker draws parallels between this state of ecstasy and the temples and arenas of ancient civilizations, which served as spaces for experiencing concentrated and ordered realities. The composer's experience of losing awareness of his physical existence during intense creative engagement is highlighted, illustrating the deep absorption and focus that characterize the 'flow experience.' The speaker humorously contrasts this with their own inability to achieve such a state due to a lack of composing talent, emphasizing the unique nature of the creative process.

10:04

🏆 The Necessity of Skill and Technique in Achieving Flow

The speaker explains that the ability to enter a state of flow, as described by the composer, requires extensive training and technical knowledge in one's field. This is a well-established notion in creativity research, with a minimum of a decade of immersion in a discipline being necessary to create meaningful work. The speaker introduces the term 'flow experience' to describe this state of effortless, spontaneous creation, which they have observed across various domains, including poetry, sports, and business. The flow experience is characterized by a sense of automatic, spontaneous action that seems to occur without conscious effort, leading to a deep sense of satisfaction and fulfillment. The speaker also shares insights from interviews with successful and ethical CEOs, highlighting the importance of finding joy in work and contributing to society as part of a meaningful and successful career.

15:09

📊 The Conditions for Flow and the Pursuit of Optimal Experience

The final paragraph outlines the conditions that lead to the flow experience, based on extensive research involving interviews with diverse individuals from around the world. The speaker identifies seven key conditions for flow: intense focus, a sense of ecstasy and clarity, immediate feedback, a balance between challenge and skill, a loss of self-consciousness, a feeling of timelessness, and a sense of being part of something larger. The speaker describes a method of measuring everyday life experiences by using electronic pagers to survey individuals' activities and feelings throughout the day. This research has helped to identify the optimal balance between challenge and skill that leads to flow. The speaker also discusses the different zones of experience, such as arousal, control, relaxation, boredom, and apathy, and how they relate to the flow channel. The goal, as the speaker concludes, is to understand how to increase the flow experience in everyday life, a challenge that some individuals achieve naturally while others struggle with.

Keywords

💡World War II

World War II, often referred to as the Second World War, was a global conflict that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved many of the world's nations, including all of the great powers, organized into two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis. In the video script, the speaker's childhood experience during World War II serves as a catalyst for their interest in understanding what makes a life worth living, particularly in the face of such devastating events.

💡Psyche

The psyche refers to the human mind, especially in relation to the unconscious processes and experiences. In the context of the video, the speaker discusses how the psyche of Europeans was traumatized by the war, leading to the projection of flying saucers and other symbols as a coping mechanism. This concept is integral to the speaker's journey into psychology and understanding the human response to trauma.

💡Carl Jung

Carl Jung was a Swiss psychiatrist and psychoanalyst who founded analytical psychology. He is known for his concept of the collective unconscious and archetypes. The speaker encountered Jung's work after attending a lecture on flying saucers, which was actually about the psychological impact of war. Jung's ideas became a significant influence on the speaker's interest in psychology and the pursuit of happiness.

💡Flow Experience

The flow experience is a term coined by the speaker, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, to describe a state of deep absorption in an activity, where one loses a sense of self and time. It is characterized by a feeling of energized focus, full involvement, and success in the process of the activity. The concept is central to the video's theme, as it explores the conditions under which people find happiness and fulfillment in their lives.

💡Ecstasy

Ecstasy, derived from the Greek word meaning 'to stand outside of oneself,' refers to a state of intense joy or pleasure. In the script, the term is used to describe the feeling of being completely immersed in an activity to the point where one's ordinary sense of self is transcended. This concept is closely related to the flow experience and is a key element in the speaker's exploration of happiness.

💡Creativity

Creativity is the use of imagination or original ideas to create something. In the video, the speaker examines the lives of creative individuals, such as artists and scientists, to understand what drives them to devote their lives to activities that may not bring fame or fortune but provide a sense of meaning and fulfillment. This aligns with the broader theme of the video, which is the search for what makes life worth living.

💡Happiness

Happiness, in the context of the video, is explored as a subjective state of well-being and contentment. The speaker discusses research indicating that beyond a certain basic level of material well-being, increases in wealth do not correlate with increased happiness. This challenges the common notion that material success is the key to happiness and is central to the video's exploration of what truly contributes to a life of value.

💡Mandalas

Mandalas are spiritual and ritual symbols in Hinduism and Buddhism, often used for focusing attention and as a spiritual guidance tool. In the script, the speaker mentions how mandalas were projected into the sky as a metaphor for the human psyche's attempt to regain order after the chaos of war. This concept illustrates the psychological need for structure and meaning in the face of upheaval.

💡Material Well-being

Material well-being refers to the state of having sufficient material resources to meet one's needs. The speaker discusses research findings that suggest a certain level of material well-being is necessary for happiness, but beyond a certain point, increased wealth does not lead to increased happiness. This concept is crucial to understanding the video's message about the limits of materialism in achieving a fulfilling life.

💡Technique

Technique, in the context of the video, refers to the skills and methods required to excel in a particular field or activity. The speaker emphasizes that a minimum of 10 years of immersion in a field is necessary to achieve the 'flow experience' and true creativity. This underscores the importance of mastery and skill development in the pursuit of happiness and fulfillment.

💡Good Business

In the script, 'Good Business' refers to the speaker's book where he interviews CEOs who are recognized for being both successful and ethical. The concept is used to illustrate that success can be defined by its contribution to others and the happiness it brings to the individual, aligning with the video's theme of seeking meaningful and fulfilling work.

Highlights

The speaker grew up in Europe during World War II and became interested in understanding what contributes to a life worth living.

As a child and teenager, the speaker explored philosophy, art, religion, and other areas in search of answers to life's meaning.

The speaker discovered psychology by chance after attending a lecture on how Europeans projected their war traumas into beliefs in flying saucers.

The lecture introduced the speaker to Carl Jung's work, which they began studying and eventually brought them to the United States to study psychology.

Research shows that about 30% of Americans surveyed since 1956 report being very happy, a percentage that has remained constant despite significant increases in personal income.

Material well-being beyond a certain basic level does not seem to affect happiness, while a lack of basic resources contributes to unhappiness.

The speaker's research focused on understanding where and when people feel truly happy in everyday life, starting with studying creative individuals like artists and scientists.

A leading composer described feeling an ecstatic state when composing went well, a state of stepping into an alternative reality.

Ecstasy is described as an intense experience where one's body and identity temporarily disappear from consciousness due to the high concentration required.

The ability to enter this ecstatic, creative state requires at least 10 years of technical knowledge immersion in a field.

The speaker coined the term 'flow experience' to describe the effortless, spontaneous state that arises during intense engagement in creative activities.

Flow experiences have been observed across various domains, including writing, sports, business, and even among CEOs who prioritize ethical and socially responsible practices.

Seven conditions consistently accompany flow experiences: intense focus, clarity, immediate feedback, a balance between challenge and skill, loss of self-consciousness, altered sense of time, and a feeling of being part of something larger.

The speaker's research involves using electronic pagers to collect real-time data on people's activities and feelings throughout the day to measure challenge and skill levels.

Flow occurs when challenges and skills are both higher than average for an individual, and can be entered from states of arousal (over-challenged) or control (comfortable but not excited).

The goal is to help more people experience flow in their everyday lives by understanding the conditions that facilitate it and encouraging the pursuit of activities that provide it.

The speaker acknowledges that while some people naturally experience flow without guidance, many others do not and could benefit from learning how to cultivate it.

Transcripts

I grew up in Europe, and World War II caught me

when I was between seven and 10 years old.

And I realized how few of the grown-ups that I knew

were able to withstand the tragedies that the war visited on them --

how few of them could even resemble a normal, contented,

satisfied, happy life once their job, their home, their security

was destroyed by the war.

So I became interested in understanding

what contributed to a life that was worth living.

And I tried, as a child, as a teenager, to read philosophy

and to get involved in art and religion and many other ways

that I could see as a possible answer to that question.

And finally I ended up encountering psychology by chance.

I was at a ski resort in Switzerland without any money

to actually enjoy myself, because the snow had melted and

I didn't have money to go to a movie. But I found that on the --

I read in the newspapers that there was to be a presentation

by someone in a place that I'd seen in the center of Zurich,

and it was about flying saucers [that] he was going to talk.

And I thought, well, since I can't go to the movies,

at least I will go for free to listen to flying saucers.

And the man who talked at that evening lecture was very interesting.

Instead of talking about little green men,

he talked about how the psyche of the Europeans

had been traumatized by the war, and now they're projecting

flying saucers into the sky.

He talked about how the mandalas of ancient Hindu religion

were kind of projected into the sky as an attempt to regain

some sense of order after the chaos of war.

And this seemed very interesting to me.

And I started reading his books after that lecture.

And that was Carl Jung, whose name or work I had no idea about.

Then I came to this country to study psychology

and I started trying to understand the roots of happiness.

This is a typical result that many people have presented,

and there are many variations on it.

But this, for instance, shows that about 30 percent of the people

surveyed in the United States since 1956

say that their life is very happy.

And that hasn't changed at all.

Whereas the personal income,

on a scale that has been held constant to accommodate for inflation,

has more than doubled, almost tripled, in that period.

But you find essentially the same results,

namely, that after a certain basic point -- which corresponds more or less

to just a few 1,000 dollars above the minimum poverty level --

increases in material well-being don't seem to affect how happy people are.

In fact, you can find that the lack of basic resources,

material resources, contributes to unhappiness,

but the increase in material resources does not increase happiness.

So my research has been focused more on --

after finding out these things that actually corresponded

to my own experience, I tried to understand:

where -- in everyday life, in our normal experience --

do we feel really happy?

And to start

those studies about 40 years ago, I began to look at creative people --

first artists and scientists, and so forth -- trying to understand

what made them feel that it was worth essentially spending their life

doing things for which many of them didn't expect either fame or fortune,

but which made their life meaningful and worth doing.

This was one of the leading composers of American music back in the '70s.

And the interview was 40 pages long.

But this little excerpt is a very good summary

of what he was saying during the interview.

And it describes how he feels when composing is going well.

And he says by describing it as an ecstatic state.

Now, "ecstasy" in Greek meant

simply to stand to the side of something.

And then it became essentially an analogy for a mental state

where you feel that you are not doing your ordinary everyday routines.

So ecstasy is essentially a stepping into an alternative reality.

And it's interesting, if you think about it, how, when we think about

the civilizations that we look up to as having been pinnacles of human achievement --

whether it's China, Greece, the Hindu civilization,

or the Mayas, or Egyptians -- what we know about them

is really about their ecstasies, not about their everyday life.

We know the temples they built, where people could come

to experience a different reality.

We know about the circuses,

the arenas, the theaters.

These are the remains of civilizations and they are the places that people went

to experience life in a more concentrated, more ordered form.

Now, this man doesn't need to go to a place like this,

which is also -- this place, this arena, which is built

like a Greek amphitheatre, is a place for ecstasy also.

We are participating in a reality that is different

from that of the everyday life that we're used to.

But this man doesn't need to go there.

He needs just a piece of paper where he can put down little marks,

and as he does that, he can imagine sounds

that had not existed before in that particular combination.

So once he gets to that point of beginning to create,

like Jennifer did in her improvisation,

a new reality -- that is, a moment of ecstasy --

he enters that different reality.

Now he says also that this is so intense an experience

that it feels almost as if he didn't exist.

And that sounds like a kind of a romantic exaggeration.

But actually, our nervous system is incapable of processing

more than about 110 bits of information per second.

And in order to hear me and understand what I'm saying,

you need to process about 60 bits per second.

That's why you can't hear more than two people.

You can't understand more than two people talking to you.

Well, when you are really involved in this completely engaging process

of creating something new, as this man is,

he doesn't have enough attention left over to monitor

how his body feels, or his problems at home.

He can't feel even that he's hungry or tired.

His body disappears,

his identity disappears from his consciousness,

because he doesn't have enough attention, like none of us do,

to really do well something that requires a lot of concentration,

and at the same time to feel that he exists.

So existence is temporarily suspended.

And he says that his hand seems to be moving by itself.

Now, I could look at my hand for two weeks, and I wouldn't feel

any awe or wonder, because I can't compose. (Laughter)

So what it's telling you here

is that obviously this automatic,

spontaneous process that he's describing can only happen to someone

who is very well trained and who has developed technique.

And it has become a kind of a truism in the study of creativity

that you can't be creating anything with less than 10 years

of technical-knowledge immersion in a particular field.

Whether it's mathematics or music, it takes that long

to be able to begin to change something in a way that it's better

than what was there before.

Now, when that happens,

he says the music just flows out.

And because all of these people I started interviewing --

this was an interview which is over 30 years old --

so many of the people described this as a spontaneous flow

that I called this type of experience the "flow experience."

And it happens in different realms.

For instance, a poet describes it in this form.

This is by a student of mine who interviewed

some of the leading writers and poets in the United States.

And it describes the same effortless, spontaneous feeling

that you get when you enter into this ecstatic state.

This poet describes it as opening a door that floats in the sky --

a very similar description to what Albert Einstein gave

as to how he imagined the forces of relativity,

when he was struggling with trying to understand how it worked.

But it happens in other activities.

For instance, this is another student of mine,

Susan Jackson from Australia, who did work

with some of the leading athletes in the world.

And you see here in this description of an Olympic skater,

the same essential description of the phenomenology

of the inner state of the person.

You don't think; it goes automatically,

if you merge yourself with the music, and so forth.

It happens also, actually, in the most recent book I wrote,

called "Good Business," where I interviewed some of the CEOs

who had been nominated by their peers as being both very successful

and very ethical, very socially responsible.

You see that these people define success

as something that helps others and at the same time

makes you feel happy as you are working at it.

And like all of these successful and responsible CEOs say,

you can't have just one of these things be successful

if you want a meaningful and successful job.

Anita Roddick is another one of these CEOs we interviewed.

She is the founder of Body Shop,

the natural cosmetics king.

It's kind of a passion that comes

from doing the best and having flow while you're working.

This is an interesting little quote from Masaru Ibuka,

who was at that time starting out Sony without any money,

without a product -- they didn't have a product,

they didn't have anything, but they had an idea.

And the idea he had was to establish a place of work where engineers

can feel the joy of technological innovation,

be aware of their mission to society and work to their heart's content.

I couldn't improve on this as a good example

of how flow enters the workplace.

Now, when we do studies --

we have, with other colleagues around the world,

done over 8,000 interviews of people -- from Dominican monks,

to blind nuns, to Himalayan climbers, to Navajo shepherds --

who enjoy their work.

And regardless of the culture,

regardless of education or whatever, there are these seven conditions

that seem to be there when a person is in flow.

There's this focus that, once it becomes intense,

leads to a sense of ecstasy, a sense of clarity:

you know exactly what you want to do from one moment to the other;

you get immediate feedback.

You know that what you need to do

is possible to do, even though difficult,

and sense of time disappears, you forget yourself,

you feel part of something larger.

And once the conditions are present,

what you are doing becomes worth doing for its own sake.

In our studies, we represent the everyday life of people in this simple scheme.

And we can measure this very precisely, actually,

because we give people electronic pagers that go off 10 times a day,

and whenever they go off you say what you're doing, how you feel,

where you are, what you're thinking about.

And two things that we measure is the amount of challenge

people experience at that moment and the amount of skill

that they feel they have at that moment.

So for each person we can establish an average,

which is the center of the diagram.

That would be your mean level of challenge and skill,

which will be different from that of anybody else.

But you have a kind of a set point there, which would be in the middle.

If we know what that set point is,

we can predict fairly accurately when you will be in flow,

and it will be when your challenges are higher than average

and skills are higher than average.

And you may be doing things very differently from other people,

but for everyone that flow channel, that area there,

will be when you are doing what you really like to do --

play the piano, be with your best friend, perhaps work,

if work is what provides flow for you.

And then the other areas become less and less positive.

Arousal is still good because you are over-challenged there.

Your skills are not quite as high as they should be,

but you can move into flow fairly easily

by just developing a little more skill.

So, arousal is the area where most people learn from,

because that's where they're pushed beyond their comfort zone

and to enter that -- going back to flow --

then they develop higher skills.

Control is also a good place to be,

because there you feel comfortable, but not very excited.

It's not very challenging any more.

And if you want to enter flow from control,

you have to increase the challenges.

So those two are ideal and complementary areas

from which flow is easy to go into.

The other combinations of challenge and skill

become progressively less optimal.

Relaxation is fine -- you still feel OK.

Boredom begins to be very aversive

and apathy becomes very negative:

you don't feel that you're doing anything,

you don't use your skills, there's no challenge.

Unfortunately, a lot of people's experience is in apathy.

The largest single contributor to that experience

is watching television; the next one is being in the bathroom, sitting.

Even though sometimes watching television

about seven to eight percent of the time is in flow,

but that's when you choose a program you really want to watch

and you get feedback from it.

So the question we are trying to address -- and I'm way over time --

is how to put more and more of everyday life in that flow channel.

And that is the kind of challenge that we're trying to understand.

And some of you obviously know how to do that spontaneously

without any advice, but unfortunately a lot of people don't.

And that's what our mandate is, in a way, to do.

Thank you.

(Applause)