What is Happiness really? – The Flow & Autotelic persons – #Csikszentmihalyi

This little article is just made of things I found on the web. It’s made for people who never heard about the “Flow”. I added a little complement with Autotelism…

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flow_(psychology)

 

Mister Csikszentmihalyi is an Hungarian psychologist. He was interested in happiness, and found out a very curious thing : one is happy when one is… busy.

The components of this happiness are :

1. challenge-skill balance
2. merging of action and awareness
3. clarity of goals
4. immediate and unambiguous feedback
5. concentration on the task at hand
6. paradox of control
7. transformation of time
8. loss of self-consciousness
9. autotelic experience

 

For this last word, I copy paste wiki :

The autotelic personality is one in which a person performs acts because they are intrinsically rewarding, rather than to achieve external goals. Csikszentmihalyi describes the autotelic personality as a trait possessed by individuals who can learn to enjoy situations that most other people would find miserable. Research has shown that aspects associated with the autotelic personality include curiosity, persistence, and humility.

 

People who have experienced flow, describe the following feelings:

1. Completely involved in what we are doing – focused, concentrated.
2. A sense of ecstasy – of being outside everyday reality.
3. Great inner clarity – knowing what needs to be done, and how well we are doing.
4. Knowing that the activity is doable – that our skills are adequate to the task.
5. A sense of serenity – no worries about oneself, and a feeling of growing beyond the boundaries of the ego.
6. Timelessness – thoroughly focused on the present, hours seem to pass by the minute.
7. Intrinsic motivation – whatever produces flow becomes it own reward.

 

You can find this when you flirt, when you blog, when you videogame, when you… work. Sometimes you have to think back about it when you ask yourself about happiness. It’s a way to show that it can be reached with(in) yourself…

 

Have a nice day!