Third and fourth, the concentration is usually possible because the task undertaken has clear goals and provides immediate feedback.Second, we must be able to concentrate on what we are doing.First, the experience usually occurs when we confront tasks we have a chance of completing.When people reflect on how it feels when their experience is most positive, they mention at least one, and often all, of the following.As our studies have suggested, the phenomenology of enjoyment has eight major components.The second is to change how we experience external conditions to make them fit our goals better. The first is to try making external conditions match our goals. There are two main strategies we can adopt to improve the quality of life.

This is the way the self grows.Ĭhapter 3: Enjoyment and the Quality of Life And once we have tasted this joy, we will redouble our efforts to taste it again. When we choose a goal and invest ourselves in it to the limits of our concentration, whatever we do will be enjoyable. Paradoxically, 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.

The self becomes complex as a result of experiencing flow.And the person who can do this usually enjoys the normal course of everyday life. The mark of a person who is in control of consciousness is the ability to focus attention at will, to be oblivious to distractions, to concentrate for as long as it takes to achieve a goal, and not longer.This ability to persevere despite obstacles and setbacks is the quality people most admire in others, and justly so it is probably the most important trait not only for succeeding in life, but for enjoying it as well.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.'For success, like happiness, cannot be pursued it must ensue…as the unintended side-effect of one’s personal dedication to a course greater than oneself.” - Viktor Frankl, Man’s Search for Meaning.People who learn to control inner experience will be able to determine the quality of their lives, which is as close as any of us can come to being happy. Happiness, in fact, is a condition that must be prepared for, cultivated, and defended privately by each person.While happiness itself is sought for its own sake, every other goal-health, beauty, money, or power-is valued only because we expect that it will make us happy.

Flow by mihaly csikszentmihalyi