Business Book Review: Flow by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

Csikszentmihalyi skilfully shares how the pursuit of happiness could actually be about finding flow. And harmonising enough meaningful flow starts to create purpose.

My Rating: ★★★★★

Length:  320 pages

Publisher: Rider - Trade

Released: 2002 (first published 1990)

Key Takeaways for Personal Branding

You’ve likely heard of the idea of ‘Flow’. Whether you recognise it as a psychological state or casually say the words ‘I was in the Flow’.

The name behind this sensation in psychology is Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. In Flow, the renowned psychologist distils 40 years of research. So the average person can learn more about the most fulfilling state of being for a happier and fulfilling life. It explores how we are happiest when we lose ourselves in a meaningful goal.

Csikszentmihalyi describes Flow as:

“A state of joy, creativity and total involvement, in which problems seem to disappear and there is an exhilarating feeling of transcendence.”

The ‘optimal experience’ creates Flow:

“I developed a theory of optimal experience based on the concept of flow—the state in which people are so involved in an activity that nothing else seems to matter; the experience itself is so enjoyable that people will do it even at great cost, for the sheer sake of doing it.”

The book’s intent is to use tools of modern psychology to explore the ancient question - when do people feel the most happy? If we can understand it, we can find a way to order life so happiness plays a more significant part.

Academia meets action, with a litany of practical advice in Flow. Here are just a few of my favourite conversations:

The Play of Words

Csikszentmihalyi reminds you of one of humankind’s most ancient pastimes - the play of words.

From letters to diaries, poetry to crosswords the thought involved in writing lets ideas emerge.

“If the only point to writing were to transmit information, then it would deserve to become obsolete. But the point of writing is to create information, not simply to pass it along.”

Whether you're writing blogs, social media captions, emails or speeches, personal brand efforts will use the power of words. Even with the advent of AI since Flow was first published, writing is a potential optimal experience. One that allows you to better understand your own experiences. And, if you engage in content creation, you get to be the historian of your life.

“Writing gives the mind a disciplined means of expression. It allows one to record events and experiences so that they can be easily recalled, and relived in the future. It is a way to analyze and understand experiences, a self-communication that brings order to them."

The Paradox of Work

As expected, the more someone achieves Flow during the week, the better the quality of their experience. But, the surprising part of Csikszentmihalyi's research is how often people experience Flow at work compared to leisure.

When people are at work, they are facing above-average challenges and using above-average skills. However, while at leisure, we can feel apathy due to below-average challenges and use of skills.

Work has built-in goals, feedback and rules that push our skills and ideally offer a sustainable degree of challenge. This tells us that optimal experiences like this help create Flow.

This leads to discussion around better use of your free time.

“Hobbies that demand skill, habits that set goals and limits, personal interests, and especially inner discipline help to make leisure what it is supposed to be—a chance for re-creation.”

When applied to personal branding, so many say they don’t have time to start their own Podcast, YouTube channel or blog. Or, simply lack the motivation after a hard day’s work to do more than sit on the couch watching TV. How the apathetic use of our downtime could be hurting our potential for happiness is an interesting motivator. It helps prioritise the value of more challenging leisure time hobbies.

The Making of Meaning

The pursuit of Flow becomes more meaningful when optimal experiences come together in harmony.

“If a person sets out to achieve a difficult enough goal, from which all other goals logically follow, and if he or she invests all energy in developing skills to reach that goal, then actions and feelings will be in harmony, and the separate parts of life will fit together—and each activity will “make sense” in the present, as well as in view of the past and of the future. In such a way, it is possible to give meaning to one’s entire life.”

Those who live meaningful lives usually have a goal challenging enough for their energies and also adds significance to their life. This helps form their purpose.

Favourite Quotes

People keep diaries, save snapshots, make slides and home movies, and collect souvenirs and mementos to store in their houses to build what is in effect a museum of the life of the family.

In a sense, every individual is a historian of his or her own personal existence.

Studies on flow have demonstrated repeatedly that more than anything else, the quality of life depends on two factors: how we experience work, and our relations with other people.

Before investing great amounts of energy in a goal, it pays to raise the fundamental questions: Is this something I really want to do? Is it something I enjoy doing?

Beautifully written, Flow itself induces a state of Flow. Csikszentmihalyi translates his natural language of academia into layperson language. Making the insights for the pursuit of happiness free-flowing for the masses.

Flow by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi:  Available on Amazon.