Inspirational Quotations

Inspirational Quotes by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (Hungarian-American Psychologist)

Mihalyi Robert Csikszentmihalyi (1934–2021) was a Hungarian-born American psychologist. He was a leading scholar and co-founder, with Martin Seligman, of the modern-day positive psychology movement. Csikszentmihalyi initiated the concept of “flow,” where a person acts at optimal performance without thinking about it.

Born in Fiume, Kingdom of Italy (today Rijeka, Croatia,) to a Hungarian diplomat, Csikszentmihalyi taught at Lake Forest College, University of Chicago, and Claremont Graduate University.

Csikszentmihalyi put forward ‘Flow Theory’ to describe the experiences of intrinsically motivated people—those engaged in an activity chosen for its own sake. Such actions were regarded as worth doing just for doing them rather than as a means to an end. He described, “Flow is the mental state of operation in which a person performing an activity is fully immersed in a feeling of energized focus, full involvement, and enjoyment in the process of the activity.”

While others’ research on intrinsic motivation focused on behavioral outcomes, Csikszentmihalyi described the quality of subjective experience or how intrinsic motivation felt. Additionally, he explained the characteristics of the activities that people were intrinsically motivated to pursue and why such activities were rewarding.

Csikszentmihalyi’s bestselling books such as Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience (1990,) Finding Flow: The Psychology of Engagement With Everyday Life (1998,) and Good Business: Leadership, Flow, and the Making of Meaning (2003) discuss how we’re more likely to find flow at work than in leisure.

More: Wikipedia READ: Works by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

Contrary to what we usually believe … the best moments in our lives, are not the passive, receptive, relaxing times—although such experiences can also be enjoyable, if we have worked hard to attain them. The best moments usually occur when a person’s body or mind is stretched to its limits in a voluntary effort to accomplish something difficult and worthwhile.
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
Topics: Effort

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
Topics: Happiness, Good, Life, Business, Perfect, Zen, Success, Sin

Knowing oneself is not so much a question of discovering what is present in one’s self, but rather the creation of who one wants to be.
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
Topics: Zen, Business, Sin, Win, Good, Discover

Sir John Templeton: “My ethical principle in the first place was: ‘Where could I use my talents that God gave me to help the most people?’”
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
Topics: Sin, Good, Business, People, Zen, Talent, God

The downside, of course, is that over time religions become encrusted with precepts and ideas that are the antithesis of soul, as each faith tries to protect its doctrines and institution instead of nurturing the evolution of consciousness. If one is not careful to distinguish the genuine insights of a religion from its irrelevant accretions, one can go through life following an inappropriate moral compass.
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
Topics: Win, Faith, Religion, Good, Sin, Business, Soul, Follow, Zen, Life

A leader will find it difficult to articulate a coherent vision unless it expresses his core values, his basic identity…one must first embark on the formidable journey of self-discovery in order to create a vision with authentic soul.
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
Topics: Soul, Business, Values, Zen, Discover, Good, Vision, Rent, Sin, Create

As used in economics the term “capital” would be defined as follows: Capital refers to resources withheld from immediate consumption in the expectation of greater future returns. However controversial a topic this has been, capital has been the main—if not the only—way of achieving progress, even in violently anticapitalist, socialist countries. A dam, a hospital, a university, a cathedral, or a national park cannot be built without using up resources that would be easier to consume immediately, and none of them would be built at all unless they were believed to provide some greater returns in the future.
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
Topics: Good, Zen, Great, Progress, Business, Believe, Follow, Sin, Future

The happiest people spend much time in a state of flow – the state in which people are so involved in an activity that nothing else seems to matter; the experience itself is so enjoyable that people will do it even at great cost, for the sheer sake of doing it.
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
Topics: Time Management

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
Topics: Good, Business, Zen, Sin

Through learning we grow, becoming more than we were before, and in that sense learning is unselfish, because it results in the transformation of what we were before, a setting aside of the old self in favor of a more complex one.
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
Topics: Learning, Zen, Learn, Sin, Good, Results, Business

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
Topics: Sin, Business, Energy, Change, Good, Soul, Win, Zen

Of all the virtues we can learn, no trait is more useful, more essential for survival, and more likely to improve the quality of life than the ability to transform adversity into an enjoyable challenge.
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

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
Topics: Work, Great, Good, Happiness, Happy, Sin, Zen, Business

Some individuals have developed such strong internal standards that they no longer need the opinion of others to judge whether they have performed a task well or not. The ability to give objective feedback to oneself is in fact the mark of the expert.
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
Topics: Good, Business, Give, Sin, Zen, Act

To know oneself is the first step toward making flow a part of one’s entire life. But just as there is no free lunch in the material economy, nothing comes free in the psychic one. If one is not willing to invest psychic energy in the internal reality of consciousness, and instead squanders it in chasing external rewards, one loses mastery of one’s life, and ends up becoming a puppet of circumstances.
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
Topics: Economy, Zen, Energy, Business, Life, War, Sin, Mastery, Master, Good

Without respect, the subtle alchemy that binds an organization or that serves as the impetus for a business transaction would dissolve into mutual suspicion and hostility.
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
Topics: Action, Business, Zen, Sin, Good, Act

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
Topics: Business, Results, Zen, Sin, Joy, Growth, Experience, Life, Good

Jane Fonda, who divided her life into three acts, decided after her sixtieth birthday that she was now facing the final act, and came to the following conclusion: “I thought to myself, well if that’s the case and if what I’m scared of isn’t death, but getting to the end with regrets, then I’ve got to figure out what would be the things that I would regret when I got to the last act if I hadn’t done them or achieved them by then. And they were: having an intimate relationship and having made a difference”.
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
Topics: Achieve, Business, Follow, Zen, Decide, Good, Win, Life, Death, Sin, Act

Enjoyment, on the other hand, is not always pleasant, and it can be very stressful at times. A mountain climber, for example, may be close to freezing, utterly exhausted, and in danger of falling into a bottomless crevasse, yet he wouldn’t want to be anywhere else. Sipping a pina colada under a palm tree at the edge of the turquoise ocean is idyllic, but it just doesn’t compare to the exhilaration he feels on the windswept ridge.
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
Topics: Good, Stress, Joy, Business, Sin, Win, Zen

If the next generation is to face the future with zest and self-confidence, we must educate them to be original as well as competent
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

Our jobs determine to a large extent what our lives are like. Is what you do for a living making you ill? Does it keep you from becoming a more fully realized person? Do you feel ashamed of what you have to do at work? All too often, the answer to such questions is yes. Yet it does not have to be like that. Work can be one of the most joyful, most fulfilling aspects of life. Whether it will be or not depends on the actions we collectively take.
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
Topics: Jobs, Shame, Zen, Good, Work, Business, Sin, Action, Joy, Life, Questions, Live, Act

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
Topics: Attention, Good, Work, Sin, Business, Zen, Energy

Entropy is the normal state of consciousness—a condition that is neither useful nor enjoyable.
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

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
Topics: Act, Work, Good, Believe, Energy, Sin, People, Business, Zen, Vision

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
Topics: Results, Doing, Business, Happiness, Best, Good, Sin, Rent, Zen, Potential, Believe, Live

When each of these three elements of vision—concern for excellence, for people and for the wider environment—are present, business is transformed from a tool for making profits into a creative, humane experiment for improving life.
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
Topics: Good, Business, Life, Excellence, People, Sin, Zen, Vision

It is as if evolution has built a safety device in our nervous system that allows us to experience full happiness only when we are living at 100%—when we are fully using the physical and mental equipment we have been given.
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
Topics: Happiness, Sin, Zen, Experience, Give, Vice, Business, Good

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