I frequently refer to Flow with students.
It's Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi's term for that moment when you're working on something and time stands still. That moment where you are so immersed in the task that you lose track of time.
You are lost in the work, and it is wonderful. To make this happen, you have to find just the right amount of challenge that is enough to stretch your skills, but not so difficult it becomes frustrating.
While I reference it frequently, I never actually read the book Flow.
Boo on me.
I have read and heard it explained in about three dozen other books, videos, and podcasts, though. You basically can't read a personal development book without finding the word Flow.
I decided to start reading Flow. There is pretty heavy stuff within the first ten pages.
Mihaly C. writes that this is all about finding happiness. That beautiful thing that we all search for in life.
He continues to write that the problem for most of us is that we are so focused on the next goal - the big toy we want, the income, the house, the respect - that we never end up happy.
Because it's in our nature that, once we reach that goal, we already have another goal in mind. And then we have to feel deprived and struggle until we reach that next goal. It's a cycle.
While we can attain so much over a lifetime, we may never be happy.
Over the last few blog posts, I've been talking a lot about finding the process and how much that impacts us.
This takes it to a whole new level. Finding joy in the struggle and the challenge could be the key to happiness.
I mean...happiness!!!
That's heavy stuff, right?
If we can train ourselves and our kids to find joy in the struggle, joy in the challenges, and joy in the journey...imagine what we could accomplish.
This is a key component of Flow. Finding happiness and contentment in the challenges.
Imagine taking those moments we despise in our work and turning them into growth opportunities. And enjoying them while we're at it!
Multiply that by ten years, and you essentially have a superhero. A happy superhero, yet.
The challenge for parents and teachers is to figure out how to foster this desire for challenge in children. They are still pretty new to the planet, and this is heavy stuff that some people never consider over a lifetime.
There's no better time to get started than today. Let's do this.