In his book, Mihaly used: (1) the Chinese philosopher, Chuang Tzu’s way of tao; and (2) a seventy-five year old inhabitant, Serafina Vinon from the tiny hamlet of Pont Trentaz to describe FLOW and its motivation of autotelic workers –positive work attitudes that are derived from intrinsic motivation.
He found that when people say they love what they are doing (job, work); they often engaged in work “wholeheartedly” and find it intrinsically rewarding. Even if jobs or projects are not easy tasks, yet you love what they are doing, you are in the state of FLOW, easily accomplishing the task. That is what Csikszentmihalyi refers to “in a state of FLOW.”
According to Csikszentmihalyi, FLOW is the ultimate self-motivation. When people experience FLOW, they typically are completely engaged, fully focused, are able to exclude distractions from their consciousness and not worry about failure. They are so involved; they have a distorted sense of time.
What ideas can we learn from Csikszentmihalyi’s FLOW theory? He addressed that “work undertaken as a flow activity is the best way to fulfill human potentialities.” (p. 149).
Most people’s jobs are boring and routine; no challenge. In addition, to make the matter worse, they find themselves in constant conflict with supervisors or coworkers, particularly when the communication channels are “shut” and the contributions are not recognized. The daily jobs are pointless, except the paycheck.
In theory, we should choose a career or job that we adore; we would feel content with our life. However, in reality, most of us do not have the “dream job.” The only way you can make your workplace better and tolerable is to make your tasks undertaken as FLOW activities turn your boring routine job into true joy. Love your job create flow in your workplace.
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