Frontiers Friday #61. The Father of Flow

Frontiers of Psychotherapist Development

Frontiers Friday #61. The Father of Flow  

I just heard news that the Hungarian psychologist—the father of flow—Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi passed away recently at age 87.

I'm sure you've heard the term being used in positive psychology called "flow state." If I recall correctly, my first encounter of Csikszentmihalyi works was in the early 2000's in Time Magazine. In that article, they gave a tip on how to pronounce his surname Csikszentmihalyi ('Cheeks Send Me High')—or something like that. It certainly helped when I wanted to share his work in conversation.

One of the underrated contribution Csikszentmihalyi made in the seventies is the development of the Experience Sampling Method (ESM). Instead of asking people to evaluate and complete self-reported questionnaires, the ESM buzzes participants on a pager-- both at random and within 2-hourly blocks-- to fill out a booklet that they carry, noting down what they were doing/thinking/who they are with, and rating states of consciousness. (Pretty intense!)

In honor of Csikszentmihalyi's deep contribution to the science of flow and creativity, here's Frontiers Friday Five recommendations:
 

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1. ✏️ From My Desk: Do Not Focus on the Self
   From my other blog site, Full Circles. 
   Do not over focus on the self. Focus on 2 other things:
   1. The task at hand, and
   2. Others.
    

2. 📕 Csikszentmihalyi Books
   i. Flow
   ii. Finding Flow,
   iii. Creativity
   
   His book on Creativity is less well known than his seminal book, Flow. 
   Here's a snippet from Creativity:

   “Each of us is born with two contradictory sets of instructions: a conservative tendency, made up of instincts for self-preservation, self-aggrandizement, and saving energy, and an expansive tendency made up of instincts for exploring, for enjoying novelty and risk—the curiosity that leads to creativity belongs to this set. We need both of these programs. But whereas the first tendency requires little encouragement or support from outside to motivate behavior, the second can wilt if it is not cultivated. If too few opportunities for curiosity are available, if too many obstacles are placed in the way of risk and exploration, the motivation to engage in creative behavior is easily extinguished.

    
   I love this tip from engineer and inventor Jacob Rabinow, cited in Creativity: 

   When I have a job to do like that, where you have to do something that takes a lot of effort, slowly, I pretend I’m in jail. Don’t laugh. And if I’m in jail, time is of no consequence. In other words, if it takes a week to cut this, it’ll take a week. What else have I got to do? I’m going to be here for twenty years. See?
    

3. 👀  Csikszentmihalyi's TED Talk
   

   

4. 😱 The Art of Impossible
   This book is in a sense, a homage to Csikszentmihalyi's body of work--and more. It's a book about peak performance. Steve Kottler took well-worn ideas like motivation, goals, learning, creativity--and yes, flow, and dived deeper into them. 
   
   "Goal-setting" to me often seemed fluffed.  But I really like Kottler's "triple-stacked goals" idea (Daily Goals, Hit-Hard Goals, and Transformative Goals). I also like this quote from the book: 

   As far as I can tell, the only thing more difficult than the emotional toil of pursuing true excellence is the emotional toil of not pursuing true excellence.

5. ⏸ Words Worth Contemplating: 
   
   "The best moments in our lives, are not the passive, receptive, relaxing times—although such experiences can also be enjoyable, if we have worked hard to attain them. The best moments usually occur when a person’s body or mind is stretched to its limits in a voluntary effort to accomplish something difficult and worthwhile.  
     
   Optimal experience is thus something that we make happen. For a child, it could be placing with trembling fingers the last block on a tower she has built, higher than any she has built so far; for a swimmer, it could be trying to beat his own record; for a violinist, mastering an intricate musical passage. For each person there are thousands of opportunities, challenges to expand ourselves."  
     
   ~ Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience.
    

Reflection: Csikszentmihalyi writes that "autotelic" people (greek roots of auto, self; telos, goal). are more autonomous and independent, because they cannot be easily manipulated with threats or rewards, and are more immersed with everything around them. The point of reflection is this:  How do you spend you time? By design or by default?

 

Scott Miller and I are now getting ready for our 4th cohort of the Deliberate Practice Web-Based Workshop, slated to kick off late Nov 2021. If you are keen to save a spot, drop me an email to be on the waitlist (Click here to preview the course. We've made some modules free to preview)

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