Flow is an optimal case of intrinsic motivation proposed by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi and characterized by a person being fully immersed in a feeling of energized focus, full involvement and enjoyment in the process of the activity. Basically, flow is being completely absorbed in what one does. Csikszentmihalyi identified six factors that encompass the experience of flow that must all occur in combination. In order to truly experience flow, Csikszentmihalyi states that one must experience both a high level of challenge and a high level of skill. Entering into a state of flow is important because it allow a person to find enjoyment in what they are doing, have a successful experience and be persistent. Happiness is defined as “frequent positive affect, high life satisfaction, and infrequent negative affect” (Lyubomirsky, Schkade and Sheldon 2005). According to the article Pursuing Happiness: The Architecture of Sustainable Change, a person’s happiness level is determined by three major factors: a genetically determined set point for happiness, happiness-relevant circumstantial factors, and happiness-relevant activities and practices. There are several ways to elicit flow and to make this positive improvement on a person’s performance. An entire segment of psychology is dedicated to positive psychotherapy, which deals with increasing positive emotion, engagement and meaning. The article Positive Psychotherapy talks about how Martin Seligman suggested happiness can be divided into three manageable components including the positive emotion, engagement, and meaning. Six exercises were used in this study to increase the positive emotions and engagement that a person experienced included several different tasks meant to focus on the posi...
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In the future, it would be very interesting to see the effects that positive psychotherapy and the concept of flow can have on a team’s performance as whole. If an individual person can reach optimal performance by entering flow, if an entire team would be able to enter flow they would be very competitive. It would be incredibly powerful for a coach to be able elicit flow within a team. Additionally, it would interesting to see which particular sports this would work better for. However, due to the fact that flow is a very organic concept and it is very difficult to tell is a person has truly reached flow, it would be very difficult to compare the results across a wide range of sports. At the academy and within the Coast Guard being able to elicit flow would be a very useful skill to be able to complete the difficult tasks faced on a daily basis.
Due to the stressful and high pressure nature of this achievement context in academies, the question of how to ensure athletes realize their sporting potential without experiencing athletic burnout has become increasingly important (Isoard-Gautheur, Guillet-Ducas & Duda, 2012). Research into this process has highlighted various factors such as perfectionism (Lemyre, Hall & Roberts, 2008; Gould, Tuffey, Udry & Loehr, 1997) and stress-coping techniques (Coakley, 1992) as being important in athletic burnout, but has also shown certain motivational factors ( ) to play an influential ...
When we are engaged in "flow" we must be doing something that we enjoy, and as Csikszentmihaly so aptly states, "Allocation of time, presents difficult choices that eventually determine the content and quality of our lives" (146). It is important to note that these activities during "flow" are good only in small amounts; because in large doses can consume our lives and even be harmful. People who do spend large amounts of time on one activity will be consumed by it and not have room for anything else in their lives, so this can actually cause unhappiness. It is important to note that during a "flow" experience people have not been shown to have a increase in happiness, but only after the activity is completed they are in a more positive state. Over time small doses of flow can lead to an overall increase in well-being and happiness over a period of time doing these activities, Csikszentmihaly tells us, " The prerequisite for happiness is the ability to get fully involved in life" (150). From this we are able to learn and focus on building balance, happiness and we must experience everything life has to
Process philosophy is known as the idea that everything is changing. Over the years, process philosophy has changed the way humans exist and go about their day to day lives. In order to fully grasp the concept of process philosophy we will first take a closer look at process philosophy, as a whole, its history, and the ideas behind this particular philosophy. Then we will discuss the effects process philosophy has had on marriage and family, followed by a brief commentary.
Using the concepts of flow from Csikszentmihalyi, these authors hypothesized that by experiencing flow at work would create a positive leadership role, which would eventually lead to a great satisfaction in their job (Smith, Koppes, and Vodanovich). When a person is satisfied with their job, they are more likely to be organized and perform to their greatest capability. Some researchers have attempted to use flow to measure the relationship between the usage of flow and the attitudes of the employees while doing their job. The more an employee uses flow in their day-to-day work life, the happier the employee will be in the well-being of life (Fullagar and Kelloway). Using psychological flow in everyday work life has been proven to be extremely beneficial in creating a happy employee that is satisfied with the work that he or she is doing. Researcher Bakker has said that while experiencing flow, a person should feel an intense feeling of accomplishment and fulfilment, just while performing the task that they are expected to do everyday in their jobs (Bakker). Contrary to Csikszentmihalyi’s definition of flow, researcher Bakker (2008) defines “flow as the experience of complete absorption, enjoyment, and intrinsic motivation.” This definition is different from Csikszenmihalyi’s because of Bakker’s lack of focus on one specific task at hand. Csikszenmihalyi’s definition of flow is more precise for completing a task that requires stress as to where Bakker’s is a broad sense of satisfaction when completing any task. Having many different researchers offer their perspective of psychological flow is
Flow is a state a person enters which is akin to completely encompassing motivation and attention to what they are doing. Each person can experience flow under different circumstances and tasks and in fact the tasks that I personally experience flow under may be very different from the tasks that would make another person experience the same level of flow. Csikszentmihalyi (2008) wrote “the common characteristics of optimal experience: a sense that one’s skills are adequate to cope with the challenges at hand, in a goal-directed, rule-bound, action system that provides clear clues as to how well one is performing.”
Csikszentmihalyi, Mihaly (1990). Flow – The Psychology of Optimal Experience, New York, NY: Harper and Row Publishing.
Positive psychology utilizes five pillars in order to flourish, achieve fulfillment, and satisfaction in life: Positive emotion, engagement, relationships, meaning, and accomplishment (PERMA). The five mainstays of positive psychology are not intended to be means to some other end; these foundations are selected for their own value in personal efforts to flourish, and are fundamental to human well-being. Positive psychology describes the “good life” as being pleasant, engaging, meaningful, and full of achievements and connections. Seligman proposes positive subjective experiences illicit and promote positive emotions. Positive psychology distinguishes two types of happiness that can be derived from experiences and events: Hedonic and eudemonic happines...
A. A Psychoanalytic Perspective on Anxiety in Athletes. April 2002. Athletics Insight: Online Journal of Sports Psychology. 29 May 2002 http://www.athleticsight.com.vol1iss2/Psychoanalytic_Anxiety.htm Stress Management: Behavioral Psychotherapy for Performance Enhancement.
feeling of exhilaration. Happiness is enduring satisfaction with one’s life as a whole. It is an overall evaluation of the quality of the individual’s authentic experience. It calls for balance and positive affectivity over a long period of time. In a similar assertion given by Fordyce, it is accounted to all the pleasant and unpleasant experiences in the recent past. Bentham (1789) and Kahneman (2000) supported the idea of Fordyce that happiness is the sum of pleasure and pains and it underlies with the overall evaluation of life. The qualities of life and kinds of satisfaction pertain to the diverse sources or determinants of happiness of an individual. These put in a nutshell the various sources which are included in the development of the
For the purpose of this paper I will be describing a personal life experience and I will be applying concepts from the texts to best describe the event. I was born here in the United States (US) but, I was raised in the Dominican Republic (DR). I lived in the DR basically my entire life, I would only come to the US for vacation during summer. It was not until I turned 12 that I decided to move back to the US to continue my studies and learn the language. So I did, I moved with my uncle and his wife on the summer of 2009. At the time, they resided in the Mayfair area of Philadelphia, PA. My uncle and his wife arranged everything for school and as of August of that year I was officially enrolled in Abraham Lincoln High School. Everything was
...ompetition environment. There is increasing recognition by the sports community that supporting athlete mental health is a vital aspect of competitive performance, and is as integral to success as the athlete’s physical abilities. The profession of sports psychology provides a very meaningful contribution to help facilitate athlete wellbeing and maximize the psychological skills required to compete at the highest level of competition.
Motivation is key in the workplace. It is developed from the collaboration of both conscious and unconscious principles such as the strength of desire or need, motivating force or reward estimation of the objective, and desires of the person and of his or her peers/co-workers. These elements are the reasons one has for carrying on a specific way. An illustration is an understudy that invests additional energy contemplating for a test since he or she needs a superior review in the class. The Inside and outside principles that animate want and vitality in individuals to be constantly intrigued and centered around their work, part or subject, or to try to achieve an objective.
Flow is a mindset that people feel when their mind is completely involved or focused on one specific task by losing track of time, unaware of fatigue, and oblivious to everything occurring around them except the task. Studies have that when an individual experiences flow they desire to experience the same joy again seeking after the same reasons. For the reasons that the person continues to set clear goals is flow compared to a motor for development of talent because as the person develops they must continually be actively involved in the skills they would love to develop. As the person begins to loss themselves subconsciously the person no longer stresses if they are amazing or not but more participate because of the joy felt during the activity. Lastly, the person must constantly find techniques to further their skills and continue to challenge them self or they may become bored bringing the motor to a halt or change of pace in development.
When you step back and look at the big picture of life, you will notice that the concept of learning plays an essential role in it. What you learn and how you learn is your key to life success and it can open a multitude of doors for you along the way. Learning, however, is routine and much like other activities that are routine such as brushing your teeth or eating meals, you begin to think less and less about what you are doing or how you have been doing it. I never actually put too much thought into how I learned or the origins of my learning experience, but after reflecting on the ideas I have been able to clearly identify the manners in which I have learned and how I can transform my learning experience
Suppose one was to record their pleasures down on paper using a graph. At first, one might be confused as to how to go about quantifying their happiness. After consideration of the quality of ones varying pleasures though, one is more able to deduce whether it is a higher or a lower pleasure and graph them. This enables one to distinguish which things promote the greatest pleasure, which translates itself to strive for happiness. For example, consider the attainment of food or sex in contrast to mental and spiritual growth. When one is only interested in satiating their appetite for food or sex, the pleasure acquired is minuscule when compared to the acquisition of mental and spiritual growth. Thus, attaining mental and spiritual growth will bring o...