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

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

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Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
Age: 90
Born: 1934
Born: September 29
Professor
Psychiatrist
Psychologist
University Teacher
Fiume
Think
Thinking
Determine
Skills
Ones
Actually
Feel
Feels

More quotes by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

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Flow is hard to achieve without effort. Flow is not 'wasting time.
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Flow is the process of achieving happiness through control over one's inner life. The optimal state of inner experience is order in consciousness. This happens when we focus our attention (psychic energy) on realistic goals and when our skills match the challenges we face.
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And, in fact, you can find that the lack of basic resources, material resources, contributes to unhappiness, but the increase in material resources do not increase happiness.
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We shape our life by deciding to pay attention to it. It is the direction of our attention and its intensity that will determines what we accomplish and how well.
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Problems are solved only when we devote a great deal of attention to them and in a creative way...to have a good life, it is not enough to remove what is wrong with it. We also need a positive goal, otherwise why keep going? Creativity is one answer to that question - It provides one of the most exciting models for living.
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Creative individuals are more likely to have not only the strengths of their own gender but those of the other one, too.
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Pleasure is an important component of the quality of life, but by itself it does not bring happiness. Pleasure helps to maintain order, but by itself cannot create a new order in consciousness.
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
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Attention is psychic energy, and like physical energy, unless we allocate some part of it to the task at hand, no work gets done.
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
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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.
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I have a naive trust in the universe - that at some level it all makes sense, and we can get glimpses of that sense if we try.
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Contrary to what most of us believe, happiness does not simply happen to us. It's something that we make happen, and it results from doing our best. Feeling fulfilled when we live up to our potentialities is what motivates differentiation and leads to evolution.
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
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As long as we respond predictably to what feels good and what feels bad, it is easy for others to exploit our preferences for their own ends.
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
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How we feel about ourselves, the joy we get from living, ultimately depends directly on how the mind filters and interprets everyday experiences. Whether we are happy depends on inner harmony, not on the controls we are able to exert over the great forces of the universe.
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
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People generally report higher levels of stress, depression, and tension after watching TV. It seems that TV's main virtue is that it occupies the mind undemandingly.
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
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We can transform reality to the extent that we influence what happens in consciousness and thus free ourselves from the threats and blandishments of the outside world.
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
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However, a good life consists of more than simply the totality of enjoyable experiences. It must also have a meaningful pattern, a trajectory of growth that results in the development of increasing emotional, cognitive, and social complexity.
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
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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.
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
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Find out what you like and what you hate about life. Start doing more of what you love, less of what you hate.
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
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Shift often from openness to closure.
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
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We can either help to make this world a more incredible place than it has ever been, or we can hasten its return to inorganic dust.
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi