Quote

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

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
Age: 90
Born: 1934
Born: September 29
Professor
Psychiatrist
Psychologist
University Teacher
Fiume
Change
Fit
Better
Conditions
Strategies
Firsts
Second
Match
First
Quality
External
Trying
Goal
Improve
Make
Making
Goals
Life
Experience
Main
Two
Strategy

More quotes by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

Image
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.
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
Image
...if we expended all our energies solely on taking care of our own needs we would stop growing. In that respect what we call soul can be viewed as the surplus energy that can be invested into change and transformation. As such, it is the cutting edge of evolution.
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
Image
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
Image
Flow is hard to achieve without effort. Flow is not 'wasting time.
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
Image
Try to be surprised by something every day.
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
Image
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.
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
Image
Those periods of struggling to overcome challenges are what people find to be the most enjoyable times.
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
Image
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.
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
Image
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
Image
Produce as many ideas as possible. Try to produce unlikely ideas.
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
Image
It is by becoming increasingly complex that the self might be said to grow.
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
Image
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
Image
Creative individuals tend to be smart, yet also naive at the same time... Creative individuals have a combination of playfulness and discipline, or responsibility and irresponsibility.
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
Image
If a leader demonstrates that his purpose is noble, that the work will enable people to connect with something large - more permanent than their material existence - people will give the best of themselves to the enterprise
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
Image
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.
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
Image
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
Image
If we agree that the bottom line of life is happiness, not success, then it makes perfect sense to say that it is the journey that counts, not reaching the destination.
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
Image
Whether we like it or not, each of us is constrained by limits on what we can do and feel. To ignore these limits leads to denial and eventually to failure. To achieve excellence, we must first understand the reality of the everyday, with all its demands
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
Image
If I had to express in one word what makes their [creative individuals'] personalities different from others, it's complexity. They show tendencies of thought and action that in most people are segregated. They contain contradictory extremes instead of being an individual, each of them is a multitude.
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
Image
One of the surest ways to enrich life is to make experiences less fleeting.
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi