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

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

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Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
Age: 90
Born: 1934
Born: September 29
Professor
Psychiatrist
Psychologist
University Teacher
Fiume
Improves
Hearing
Listening
Life

More quotes by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

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One must develop skills that stretch capacities, that make one more than what one is.
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
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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.
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
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If you are interested in something, you will focus on it, and if you focus attention on anything, it is likely that you will become interested in it. Many of the things we find interesting are not so by nature, but because we took the trouble of paying attention to them.
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
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Produce as many ideas as possible. Try to produce unlikely ideas.
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.
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
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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.
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
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Look at problems from as many viewpoints as possible. Figure out the implications of the problem. Implement the solution.
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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Wake up in the morning with a specific goal to look forward to.
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
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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.
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
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Perform with elan, brilliance and dash - at concert pitch.
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
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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.
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
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And it has become a kind of a truism in the study of creativity that you can't be creating anything with less than 10 years of technical knowledge immersion in a particular field.
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
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If we know what that set point is, we can predict fairly accurately when you will be in flow, and it will be when your challenges are higher than average and skills are higher than average.
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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Entropy is the normal state of consciousness - a condition that is neither useful nor enjoyable.
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
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Those periods of struggling to overcome challenges are what people find to be the most enjoyable times.
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
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Repression is not the way to virtue. When people restrain themselves out of fear, their lives are by necessity diminished. Only through freely chosen discipline can life be enjoyed and still kept within the bounds of reason.
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
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...perhaps the most distinguishing trait of visionary leaders is that they believe in a goal that benefits not only themselves, but others as well. It is such vision that attracts the psychic energy of other people, and makes them willing to work beyond the call of duty for the organization.
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
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Often we don't have a good notion of what our talents are, because we have never had a chance to try them out.
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi