Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi Quotes - Page 2

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.

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

Half a century ago, the Austrian psychiatrist Viktor Frankl wrote that happiness cannot be attained by wanting to be happy - it must come as the unintended consequence of working for a goal greater than oneself.

To know oneself is the first step toward making flow a part of one's entire life. But just as there is no free lunch in the material economy, nothing comes free in the psychic one. If one is not willing to invest psychic energy in the internal reality of consciousness, and instead squanders it in chasing external rewards, one loses mastery of one's life, and ends up becoming a puppet of circumstances.

To be successful you have to enjoy doing your best while at the same time contributing to something beyond yourself.

Control of consciousness determines the quality of life.

It is not the hearing that improves life, but the listening.

There are two main strategies we can try to improve the quality of life. The first is to try making external conditions match our goals. The second is to change how we experience external conditions to make them fit our goals better.

Write down each day what surprised you and how you surprised others. When something strikes a spark of interest, follow it.

To be creative, a person has to internalize the entire system that makes creativity possible. Creative individuals are remarkable for their ability to adapt to almost any situation and to make do with whatever is at hand to reach their goals.

A person can make himself happy, or miserable, regardless of what is actually happening 'outside,' just by changing the contents of consciousness.

Develop what you lack.

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

Produce as many ideas as possible. Try to produce unlikely ideas.

The ability to take misfortune and make something good come of it is a rare gift. Those who possess it are ..said to have resilience or courage.

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

A leader will find it difficult to articulate a coherent vision unless it expresses his core values, his basic identity...one must first embark on the formidable journey of self-discovery in order to create a vision with authentic soul.

Knowing oneself is not so much a question of discovering what is present in one's self, but rather the creation of who one wants to be.

Wake up in the morning with a specific goal to look forward to.

the self expands through acts of self forgetfulness.

It is how people respond to stress that determines whether they will profit from misfortune or be miserable.

Happiness does not simply happen to us. It's something that we make happen.

Take charge of your schedule. Make time for reflection and relaxation.

It is amazing how little effort most people make to improve control of their attention. If reading a book seems too difficult, instead of sharpening concentration we tend to set it aside and instead turn on the television, which not only requires minimal attention, but in fact tends to diffuse what little it commands with choppy editing, commercial interruptions, and generally inane content.

When people restrain themselves out of fear, their lives are by necessity diminished. They become rigid and defensive, and their self stops growing.