Finding Flow

From the bestselling author of Flow and one of the pioneers of the scientific study of happiness, an indispensable guide to living your best life. What makes a good life? Is it money? An important job? Leisure time? Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi believes our obsessive focus on such measures has led us astray. Work fills our days with anxiety and pressure, so that during our free time, we tend to live in boredom, absorbed by our screens. What are we missing? To answer this question, Csikszentmihalyi studied thousands of people, and he found the key. People are happiest when they challenge themselves with tasks that demand a high degree of skill and commitment, and which are undertaken for their own sake. Instead of scrolling on your phone, play the piano. Take a routine chore and figure out how to do it better, faster, more efficiently. In short, learn the hidden power of complete engagement, a psychological state the author calls flow. Though they appear simple, the lessons in Finding Flow are life-changing.

From the bestselling author of Flow and one of the pioneers of the scientific study of happiness, an indispensable guide to living your best life. What makes a good life? Is it money? An important job? Leisure time? Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi believes our obsessive focus on such measures has led us astray. Work fills our days with anxiety and pressure, so that during our free time, we tend to live in boredom, absorbed by our screens. What are we missing? To answer this question, Csikszentmihalyi studied thousands of people, and he found the key. People are happiest when they challenge themselves with tasks that demand a high degree of skill and commitment, and which are undertaken for their own sake. Instead of scrolling on your phone, play the piano. Take a routine chore and figure out how to do it better, faster, more efficiently. In short, learn the hidden power of complete engagement, a psychological state the author calls flow. Though they appear simple, the lessons in Finding Flow are life-changing.

Exhausted? Strung out? Shackled in your own invisible straitjacket of stress? Seventy per cent of us spend most of our day in a state of stress, with our nervous systems in a position of fight, flight or freeze. Modern day stress has become pervasive in all aspects of our lives through constant pressure, the weight of perceived expectations and the drive to be always on. Many live with an energy and nervous system that feels like a tightly clenched fist, rather than an easeful, gently unfurling hand. Staying shackled in a state of overwhelm and stress has far-reaching consequences on our health. We often only pay attention when illness strikes, having tuned out to all the messages our bodies were sending us along the way. Health whispers until one day it screams. Let's not wait for the scream. But how do we do this? By having a nervous system in flow. Everything we do transforms energy in our bodies into something supportive or destructive to us, emotionally or physically. What we need is a more easeful, beneficial energy in our lives. In this book you will learn: What's truly behind your stress, how stress impacts your energy, hormones and nervous system, how to move your nervous system into a state of flow, and how to make choices that support your energy, by living in harmony with your body. Full of practical solutions, wisdom and strategies, 7 Steps to Finding Flow is your guide to lighten the load that stress places on us, and how to move through it with ease when it lands. We can't avoid stress, but we can deal with it differently and access better health, energy and balance. Nicky Rowbotham's 7 Steps to Finding Flow will help you move from being overwhelmed and locked in by stress to a more easeful, resilient and aligned life. Let's flip the script on stress.

Flow is an optimal mental state that you can control, create, and experience every day. Once you learn how to master flow, your happiness will flow quickly and effortlessly as you use strategies to gain control over your life, focus on what matters most, and motivate action toward your goals and dreams. In Find Your Flow, life coach and neurolinguistic programming practitioner Sarah Gregg reveals a powerful four-step journal system that can be applied to your everyday life. All it takes is a few minutes a day to help you find your flow through: Morning grateful flow—wake up happy as you start your day, writing words of gratitude and creating a positive mood that lasts all day. Forward focus—identify your priorities for the day to bring a sense of harmony and balance between what you must do and what you want to do Total flow—script your ideal day to spot opportunities, stay on course, and defend yourself against distraction Nighttime reflection—lean into the lessons that are showing up in life, spot opportunities to find more flow, and celebrate the powerful small steps you’re taking each day to create meaningful life changes. Let Find Your Flow be your practical guide to awaken and strengthen your authentic voice so that you can make your signature impact on the world, inspire others, and reach your full potential. The Live Well series from Rock Point invites you to create a life you love through multiple acts of self-discovery and reinvention. These encouraging gift books touch on fun yet hardworking self-improvement strategies, whether it’s learning to value progress over perfection, taking time to meditate and slow down to literally smell the roses, or finding time to show gratitude and develop a personal mantra. From learning how to obtain more restful sleep and creating a healthy work/life balance to developing personal style and your own happy place, the Live Well series encourages you to live your best life. Other titles in the series include: Progress Over Perfection; Be Happy; Seeking Slow; Finding Gratitude; Eff This! Meditation; The Joy of Forest Bathing; Find Your Mantra; It Had to be You; Men’s Society; Genius Jokes; The Calm and Cozy Book of Sleep; Beating Burnout; Ayurveda for Life; Choose Happy; and You Got This.

“Csikszentmihalyi arrives at an insight that many of us can intuitively grasp, despite our insistent (and culturally supported) denial of this truth. That is, it is not what happens to us that determines our happiness, but the manner in which we make sense of that reality. . . . The manner in which Csikszentmihalyi integrates research on consciousness, personal psychology and spirituality is illuminating.” —Los Angeles Times Book Review The bestselling classic that holds the key to unlocking meaning, creativity, peak performance, and true happiness. Legendary psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi's famous investigations of "optimal experience" have revealed that what makes an experience genuinely satisfying is a state of consciousness called flow. During flow, people typically experience deep enjoyment, creativity, and a total involvement with life. In this new edition of his groundbreaking classic work, Csikszentmihalyi ("the leading researcher into ‘flow states’" —Newsweek) demonstrates the ways this positive state can be controlled, not just left to chance. Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience teaches how, by ordering the information that enters our consciousness, we can discover true happiness, unlock our potential, and greatly improve the quality of our lives.

The ability to enter into a flow state of mind will help any runner overcome the psychological barriers associated with a race. With Running Flow, pioneering flow researcher Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi gives you tools and strategies for experiencing the power of flow.

With help from sports psychology researcher Jackson, Csikszentmihalyi (human behavior, U. of Chicago) pares down his now-famous concept of flow to basic explanations and self-assessment exercises. Emphasis is on achieving a balance between challenges and skills, setting goals, taking advantage of feedback, focusing on the present, controlling the controllables, and having fun. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

Making with our hands taps into our innate creativity, and is uplifting, nourishing, and soothing for the mind, body, and soul. Mindful Thoughts for Artists is a lovingly crafted book of reflections on the joy of making and the journey of self-discovery it can take us on. Appealing to all artists, this curated collection of 25 reflections encourages creators to live in the moment, to observe the beauty in everything, and above all, to ensure that the creative process is driven by love and enjoyment.