Don’t know the answer? Well there is a personality test to help you capture it. What is flow?
Csikszentmihalyi is credited with defining the experience as “being completely involved in an activity for its own sake. The ego falls away. Time flies. Every action, movement, and thought follows inevitably from the previous one, like playing jazz. Your whole being is involved, and you’re using your skills to the utmost.”
How often do people experience flow?
“If you ask a sample of typical Americans, “Do you ever get involved in something so deeply that nothing else seems to matter and you lose track of time?” roughly one in five will say that this happens to them as much as several times a day, whereas about 15 percent will say that this never happens to them. These frequencies seem to he quite stable and universal. For instance, in a recent survey of 6,469 Germans, the same question was answered in the following way: Often, 23 percent; Sometimes, 40 percent; Rarely, 25 percent; Never or Don’t Know, 12 percent.” (Source: Psychology Today)
Nakamura and Csíkszentmihályi identify the following six factors as encompassing an experience of flow.
intense and focused concentration on the present moment
merging of action and awareness
a loss of reflective self-consciousness
a sense of personal control or agency over the situation or activity
a distortion of temporal experience, one’s subjective experience of time is altered
experience of the activity as intrinsically rewarding, also referred to as autotelic experience
Csíkszentmihályi follows build’s on Maslow’s notion of Peak Experience: “Peak experiences are transient moments of self-actualization.”
Jamie Wheal has spent much of his adult likfe researching flow:
He explains his ideas in this compelling TED talk: Hacking the GENOME of Flow:
While she was denied at not one art school but six, she never let it discourage her as she spent the next 10 years painting. Janet Echelman has an extraordinary career:
Echelman first set out to be an artist after graduating college. She moved to Hong Kong in 1987 to study Chinese calligraphy and brush-painting. Later she moved to Bali, Indonesia, where she collaborated with artisans to combine traditional textile methods with contemporary painting.
When she lost her bamboo house in Bali to a fire, Echelman returned to the United States and began teaching at Harvard. After seven years as an Artist-in-Residence, she returned to Asia, embarking on a Fulbright lectureship in India.
Ok, could not resist. Happiness research continues to higher plains of understanding as research specifically looks at exact neurochemicals that contribute to happiness. Dr. Zak has studied Oxcytocin for over a decade in his neuro-economics lab as he sought to understand morales. From his research he made some profound discoveries:
I found that individuals who release the most oxytocin — I call them “oxytocin-adepts” — were more satisfied with their lives compared to those who release less oxytocin. Why? They had better relationships of all types: Romantic, friendships, family, and they even shared more money with strangers in laboratory experiments. The moral molecule morphed in the happy molecule. Happiness largely comes from other people for social creatures like us.
Note: The ring on the right side is actually seretonin.
Hug. Touch is powerful, be it with a person or animal.
Recognize and express your observations of other’s emotional states.
Tell people you love them.
These three actions stimulate release of oxytocin. Why does that matter? Oxytocin helps us connect with others, heal, increase generosity, romance, trust…among its primary function.
Our major findings in this investigation are as follows: Deliberate practice—operationally defined in the current investigation as the solitary study of word spellings and origins—was a better predictor of National Spelling Bee performance than either being quizzed by others or engaging in leisure reading. With each year of additional preparation, spellers devoted an increasing proportion of their preparation time to deliberate practice, despite rating the experience of such activities as more effortful and less enjoyable than the alternative preparation activities. Grittier spellers engaged in deliberate practice more so than their less gritty counterparts, and hours of deliberate practice fully mediated the prospective association between grit and spelling performance.
You can here Duckworth talk about her research at this Ted X.
People have LOVED this concept. Her Ted X talk has been viewed 118,000 times. Her original Ted talk was viewed 255,00 times. Paul Tough’s excellent book, How Children Succeed: Grit, Curiosity, and the Hidden Power of Character, profiling her research has been number 1 in Amazon’s Educational Psychology books (it is 271 overall). It has inspired a movement encouraging people to send in their own stories of Grit:
#ThisIsGRIT is a video campaign showcasing stories of people just like yourselves, who have faced hurdles, challenges and hardships in pursuing their collegiate, professional or development education. They all share something in common: they leveraged GRIT to press through their hard times and onward to success. Here is one of my alumni sharing his trials as he moved from one school to another.
Years of research show GRIT to be an absolute essential element in success. Do you have a GRIT story?
“The opposite of depression is not happiness, but vitality,” so explains Andrew Solomon in this Ted Talk. He chronicled his how experiences in The Noonday Demon: An Atlas of Depression.
Strengths Mined: Zest, Positivity, Optimism
There is a growing body of research that suggests connections to using your strengths regularly and higher levels of wellbeing. Here are some specific examples regarding Depression:
Using one’s signature strengths in a new and unique way is an effective intervention: it increased happiness and decreased depression for 6 months (Seligman, Steen, Park, Peterson, 2005).
Using one’s signature strengths in a new way and three good things increased happiness for 6 months and decreased depression for 3 and 6 months, respectively. The early positive memory group and not the early memory group had similar benefits increasing happiness and decreasing depression for 3 months each (Mongrain & Anselmo, 2009).
The use of one’s top strengths leads to a decreased likelihood of depression and stress and an increase in satisfaction in law students (Peterson & Peterson, 2008).
Three good things (writing down three positive things that happened during the day) is an effective intervention: it increased happiness and decreased depression for 6 months (Seligman, Steen, Park, Peterson, 2005).
Using one’s signature strengths in a new way increased happiness and decreased depression for 6 months (Gander, Proyer, Ruch, & Wyss, 2012).
The use of one’s top strengths leads to a decreased likelihood of depression and stress and an increase in satisfaction in law students (Peterson & Peterson, 2008).
…if you are buying something for someone else. “Spending on other people has a bigger return for you than spending on yourself.” So says Harvard Business School professor Michael I. Norton.
How generous are you? You can take an online survey at Give and Take (registration required, but free) that will analyze your responses and give you a rating in three domains: Giving, Taking and Matching.
How do people give?
It is still not too late to give this season; join the crowd:
“I share therefor I am” Shimi Cohen is a graphic artist who has struck a cord exploring loniness in the age of connection. Nearing a million views on You Tube, the Video addresses the connection between Social Networks and Being Lonely? Quoting the words of Sherry Turkle from her TED talk – Connected, But Alone and drawing inspiration from Dr. Yair Amichai-Hamburgers hebrew article -The Invention of Loneliness, Cohen’s senior project at Shenkar College of Engineering and Design. Cohen explores the paradoxical nature of becoming connected with technology which can isolate our natural social instincts. He spent 3 weeks sketching and translating the script into visuals, using Adobe After Effects and Cinema 4D to create the 2-D animation.
What does positive psychology teach us about loneliness?
Leverage your strengths:
VIA has been researching the role using strengths in your life and how they impact your mental well being:
Using one’s signature strengths in a new way increased happiness and decreased depression for 6 months (Gander, Proyer, Ruch, & Wyss, 2012).
Using one’s signature strengths in a new way increased happiness for 6 months and decreased depression for 3 months (Mongrain & Anselmo-Matthews, 2012).
The use of one’s top strengths leads to a decreased likelihood of depression and stress and an increase in satisfaction in law students (Peterson & Peterson, 2008).
Using one’s signature strengths in a new and unique way is an effective intervention: it increased happiness and decreased depression for 6 months (Seligman, Steen, Park, Peterson, 2005).
Among high school students, other-oriented strengths (e.g., kindness, teamwork) predicted fewer depression symptoms while transcendence strengths (e.g., spirituality) predicted greater life satisfaction (Gillham et al., 2011).
Grateful individuals report higher positive mood, optimism, life satisfaction, vitality, religiousness and spirituality, and less depression and envy than less grateful individuals (McCullough, Emmons, & Tsang, 2002).
While the above are not specific to loneliness, you can see the connection between depression and loneliness.
Make meaning in your life
Sam Mullins struggled with finding meaning. A few years ago, he moved to Vancouver to pursue his dream of being a big city writer and actor. So he poured his heart and soul into it. And failed. But one night at work he was challenged to make a tinfoil dinosaur and his life changed…because he shared something authentic with a stranger. It was not always that way:
I have a social anxiety disorder, and an increasingly large hunch-back. I write stories for CBC’s DNTO sometimes. I perform one-man shows sometimes. I have suicidal thoughts sometimes. And then I write one-man shows about said suicidal thoughts.
The backdrop to the story is fascinating as he reflects on it and where it has all led:
I felt like I was the poster boy for everything wrong with my generation. I felt foolish.
My sense of entitlement, my solipsism and my delusional belief that I was a unique and talented person led me to acting school. I had graduated four years later, at great expense to my parents, and then naively stepped out into the big wide world without having the slightest inkling of how to survive. And by the end of that year, I wasn’t against the ropes. I was on life-support.
So, just like that, I was back in my childhood bedroom. I was working a labour job. And I was eating a casserole prepared by my Mother every night. I didn’t know what to do next. I felt like I was lost in the universe.
Sam is doing what Victor Frankl calls making meaning:
“In some ways suffering ceases to be suffering at the moment it finds a meaning, such as the meaning of a sacrifice.”
For you see, you are always free to choose; perhaps not your experience, but the meaning you give that experience:
“Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.”
Frankl goes on to explain the significance of love in our lives:
“Love is the only way to grasp another human being in the innermost core of his personality. No one can become fully aware of the very essence of another human being unless he loves him. By his love he is enabled to see the essential traits and features in the beloved person; and even more, he sees that which is potential in him, which is not yet actualized but yet ought to be actualized. Furthermore, by his love, the loving person enables the beloved person to actualize these potentialities. By making him aware of what he can be and of what he should become, he makes these potentialities come true.”
By the way, NPR picked up Sam’s story for the Moth
Dr. Heidi Halvorson is hosting a virtual online conference that is free to anyone in the world that wants to attend. A lot of big names will be presenting between September 16th and 20th. so head on over to her site to register. I will try and showcase some of the major players to get you primed.
Dr. Heidi Halvorson is hosting a virtual online conference that is free to anyone in the world that wants to attend. A lot of big names will be presenting between September 16th and 20th. so head on over to her site to register. I will try and showcase some of the major players to get you primed.
Dr. Heidi Halvorson is hosting a virtual online conference that is free to anyone in the world that wants to attend. A lot of big names will be presenting between September 16th and 20th. so head on over to her site to register. I will try and showcase some of the major players to get you primed.
Ok, could not resist. Happiness research continues to higher plains of understanding as research specifically looks at exact neurochemicals that contribute to happiness. Dr. Zak has studied Oxcytocin for over a decade in his neuro-economics lab as he sought to understand morales. From his research he made some 
People have LOVED this concept. Her Ted X talk has been viewed 118,000 times. Her original Ted talk was viewed 255,00 times. Paul Tough’s excellent book, 
