Flow

Living at the Peak of Your Abilities

By: Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi Ph.D.

Narrated by: Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi Ph.D.

In flow, everyday experience becomes a moment by moment opportunity for joy and self-fulfillment. Flow is the brain-child of a fascinating psychologist, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, a renowned social scientist who has devoted his life's work to the study of what makes people truly happy, satisfied and fulfilled. While much of the study of psychology investigates disorders of the human mind, Dr. Csikszentmihalyi takes a different route. He focuses on the noble side of human nature, our capacity for living a life of integrity, courage, and perseverance. With his landmark research on flow, he reveals what he considers beautiful in life, ways of being and behaving that make people happy, satisfied and delighted to be alive. His insights into the "flow experience" show ways to lessen stress, fear and anxiety while increasing feelings of challenge, joy and excitement. The revolutionary findings of Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi's Experience Sampling Method offer unprecedented information about the specific ways we can turn life into a continuous high quality experience. You'll discover how anyone can enrich his or her quality of life simply by learning how flow occurs and what it feels like. You'll learn about the key elements of the flow experience including:

• why it is important to know what you want to do in any given moment
• specific activities you can do that produce flow easily and naturally
• how to improve your experience of work so you feel in control and rewarded by it
• keys to harnessing the power of concentration
• the difference between pleasure and enjoyment (only one leads to personal growth)
• how to match challenges with skills to avoid boredom and frustration and maximize enjoyment

Once you experience the exhilaration of the "flow" state of being, you'll want to return again and again.

Download the accompanying reference guide.©1994 Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, Ph.D. (P)1994 Nightingale Conant

it's okay

it is very obvious that this book is a bit outdated. you can hear that in the recording as well, it is subpar from other books on Audible. However most info in this book is good and it goes in-depth. the only annoyance i have is the music that sometimes plays. very unessecary.

Entertaining, but the book is more useful.

While I give the book five-stars, the Audible version of Flow comes across more like a podcast than a reading of Csikszentmihalyi's work. It was entertaining, but not as useful as the book.

loved it!

I've experienced FLOW on more than one occasion and have stated it before ever knowing about this book's existence! I will definitely give this a 2nd listen and try to implement the teaching as even though I have experienced FLOW, I have no clue what or how I reached the state and often find myself craving the feeling of getting back to that state!

Short of expectation

The premise of the book is that pursuit of happiness and enjoyment of one’s life is a good thing and should be carried out. The author observed that his subjects reported enjoyment when they were in a state he calls “flow”. The author describes what “flow” is and provides examples. He also lists eight components that were reported by his subjects and seem to be necessary to achieve this state of flow. That’s it, that’s the whole book. It should fit on one, maybe two pages. Everything else is mainly fluff with some, very weak, attempts by the author to struggle with his own internal conflicts. For instance, on one hand setting goals that are meaningful to oneself is crucial, but acting selfishly to achieve these goals is bad, and so on. I played the audiobook at 1.25 speed, and the author appeared to speak very slowly. I give this book some stars for the interesting and original idea, that unfortunately was not fully explored.

Nothing revolutionary

I didn’t find much of the information in this worth taking the time to read the entire book. Honestly you’d be just as well served watching one of the hundred YouTube videos summarizing what this book says, you’d just save several hours. Others might find more value in it than I did, I just didn’t find much myself.