Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

interest focus attention

“If you are interested in something, you will focus on it, and if you focus attention on anything, it is likely that you will become interested in it. Many of the things we find interesting are not so by nature, but because we took the trouble of paying attention to them.”

― Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (1934-2021)

enjoyable activity natural effort feedback skill rewarding

“Most enjoyable activities are not natural; they demand an effort that initially one is reluctant to make. But once the interaction starts to provide feedback to the person's skills, it usually begins to be intrinsically rewarding.”

― Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (1934-2021)

joyful life individual copy recipe

“A joyful life is an individual creation that cannot be copied from a recipe.”

― Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (1934-2021)

enjoyment boredom anxiety capacity act

“Enjoyment appears at the boundary between boredom and anxiety, when the challenges are just balanced with the person's capacity to act.”

― Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (1934-2021)

act freely action ulterion motive become more

“...It is when we act freely, for the sake of the action itself rather than for ulterior motives, that we learn to become more than what we were.”

― Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (1934-2021)

enjoy everyday life diminish other people chance

“The task is to learn how to enjoy everyday life without diminishing other people's chances to enjoy theirs.”

― Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (1934-2021)

virtue useful quality life adversity enjoyable challenge

“Of all the virtues we can learn no trait is more useful, more essential for survival, and more likely to improve the quality of life than the ability to transform adversity into an enjoyable challenge.”

― Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (1934-2021)

rock climbing poetry writing conquer reason self-communication

“The mystique of rock climbing is climbing; you get to the top of a rock glad it’s over but really wish it would go on forever. The justification of climbing is climbing, like the justification of poetry is writing; you don’t conquer anything except things in yourself…. The act of writing justifies poetry. Climbing is the same: recognizing that you are a flow. The purpose of the flow is to keep on flowing, not looking for a peak or utopia but staying in the flow. It is not a moving up but a continuous flowing; you move up to keep the flow going. There is no possible reason for climbing except the climbing itself; it is a self-communication.”

― Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (1934-2021)

pain pleasure consciounsness exist

“Pain and pleasure occur in consciousness and exist only there”

― Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (1934-2021)

skills determine feel thing imagine

“It is not the skills we actually have that determine how we feel but the ones we think we have.”

― Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (1934-2021)

attention energy work done dissipate memories thought quality

“Attention is like energy in that without it no work can be done, and in doing work is dissipated. We create ourselves by how we use this energy. Memories, thoughts and feelings are all shaped by how use it. And it is an energy under control, to do with as we please; hence attention is our most important tool in the task of improving the quality of experience.”

― Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (1934-2021)

socialization people control respond rewards punishment

“The essence of socialization is to make people dependent on social controls, to have them respond predictably to rewards and punishments.”

― Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (1934-2021)

socializing alone meetings popular skill learn

“Socializing is more positive than being alone, that’s why meetings are so popular. People don’t like being alone. That would be, however, an important skill to learn...”

― Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (1934-2021)

competition enjoyable perfect skill end fun

“Competition is enjoyable only when it is a means to perfect one’s skills; when it becomes an end in itself, it ceases to be fun.”

― Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (1934-2021)

shortcut dangerous delude knowledge

“But shortcuts are dangerous; we cannot delude ourselves that our knowledge is further along than it actually is.”

― Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (1934-2021)

consume culture produce reward

“Consuming culture is never as rewarding as producing it.”

― Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (1934-2021)

painters artist canvas money critic creative immersion

“Painters must want to paint above all else. If the artist in front of the canvas begins to wonder how much he will sell it for, or what the critics will think of it, he won't be able to pursue original avenues. Creative achievements depend on single-minded immersion.”

― Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (1934-2021)

compete latin petire together

“The roots of the word “compete” are the Latin con petire, which meant “to seek together.”

― Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (1934-2021)

purpose businesssantisfy create desire happy

“Since the purpose of business is to satisfy existing desires, or stimulate new ones, if everyone were genuinely happy, there would be no need for business any longer.”

― Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (1934-2021)

best moment passive repetitive relax stretch limit accomplish

"The best moments in our lives are not the passive, receptive, relaxing times...the best moments usually occur when a person's body or mind is stretched to it's limited in voluntary effort to accomplish something difficult and worthwhile."

― Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (1934-2021)

anxiety depression life social environment enjoyment

"To overcome the anxieties and depressions of contemporary life, individuals must become independent of the social environment to the degree that they no longer respond exclusively in terms of its rewards and punishments. To achieve such autonomy, a person has to learn to provide rewards to herself. She has to develop the ability to find enjoyment and purpose regardless of external circumstances."

― Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (1934-2021)

do well enjoyable complexity

"If you do anything well, it becomes enjoyable. To keep enjoying something, you need to increase its complexity."

― Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (1934-2021)

goals random walk chase

"Goals transform a random walk into a chase."

― Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (1934-2021)

order thought attention problematic

"Unless a person knows how to give order to her thoughts, attention will be attracted to whatever is most problematic at the moment."

― Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (1934-2021)

original idea percolate consciousness desire random combine

"For original ideas to come about, you have to let them percolate under the level of consciousness in a place where we have no way to make them obey our own desires or our own direction. Their random combinations are driven by forces we don't know about."

― Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (1934-2021)

creative individual smart naive discipline irresponsibility

"Creative individuals tend to be smart, yet also naive at the same time... Creative individuals have a combination of playfulness and discipline, or responsibility and irresponsibility."

― Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (1934-2021)

life excellent belong great permanent

"One cannot lead a life that is truly excellent without feeling that one belongs to something greater and more permanent than oneself."

― Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (1934-2021)

internal standard feedback oneself expert

"Some individuals have developed such strong internal standards that they no longer need the opinion of others to judge whether they have performed a task well or not. The ability to give objective feedback to oneself is in fact the mark of the expert."

― Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (1934-2021)

creative person success job well done learning own sake reward

"Even without success, creative persons find joy in a job well done. Learning for its own sake is rewarding."

― Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (1934-2021)

ideal organization worker potentialities room expression

"An ideal organization is one in which each worker's potentialities find room for expression."

― Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (1934-2021)

periods struggle challenge people enjoyable times

"Those periods of struggling to overcome challenges are what people find to be the most enjoyable times."

― Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (1934-2021)