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Don’t Chase Career Fulfillment. Catch It.
When I am writing (and in a creative groove), I have no concept of time. When I conduct statistical analysis for my research (and results are interesting), I forget to sleep. When I speak to a group (and really connect with the audience), I forget that I am introverted. Does this sound odd, or can you relate? Have you ever been so engaged with your task that you lose track of time, any sense of hunger or fatigue? If so, you have achieved a state of flow.
The psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi coined the term “flow” to describe the state people achieve when they are so enjoying what they are doing that they become completely absorbed in an activity. Flow occurs when your skill-level and challenge-level are both high – and it is the key to happiness according to Csikszentmihalyi and his colleagues.
If you’ve never reached this in your career, I want you to enjoy this heightened state of fulfillment. Many people do. You can too.
How do you get there? The keys to experiencing flow are opportunities to use your skills at a high level at a high-level challenge. Both of these, your skills and the challenge, are within your control. When considering your skills, try to identify your natural abilities. What are your talents? Your natural abilities, when leveraged and practiced over time, can become your high-level skills. When considering your level of challenge, you want to push yourself without setting unattainable goals. You want to maintain the efficacy and confidence that you can -- and will -- be successful. If your challenge is too low for your skill-level, you’ll be bored. I'm sure we've all experienced that at some point in our careers.
What income generating experience can you create for yourself that would leverage your skills on a stretch challenge? You can start a new career act (e.g., a new business or project, a profitable hobby), one that leverages your skills at a high-level, to offer you a commensurate high-level challenge.
The greatest barrier holding us back from finding career acts that will bring us to this state of flow is the perception that we don't have enough time to start something new. Time, however, is often embedded in perception rather than reality. How many hours per week do you work? Those who are most happy with their careers often have difficulty answering the question with accuracy or full confidence. They value their time but often don’t count the hours they work. Not surprisingly, many talk about enjoying themselves and losing track of time. AKA "flow".
In researching the careers of many people who are both truly happy and financially-secure in their careers, they share this concept of flow across their income-generating career acts. They enjoy the emotional buzz of doing what they enjoy and continually shed the aspects of their multiple-act career they do not find fulfilling. Flow is a state you'll experience, but the career that brings you to this state is a process.
Start today with a heightened self-awareness and willingness to keep moving closer to one’s ideal career acts. Building on your talents to create career acts that will offer multiple opportunities to achieve a state of flow is as close to a guarantee for career fulfillment as I can make.
When do you achieve flow in your career? I’d love to hear from you.
Paula
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Paula,
I enjoyed reading your blog as well as reading Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi’s book on flow. The time I recognize I am in the “flow” is when I am reading a good book or studying things that interest me such as developmental or physiological psychology. Theories such as the birth order by Adler I find to be an intriguing area of importance. One of Adler’s most significant contributions may be his theory on birth order and sibling relationships. I agree with Adler that birth order is important, and that it motivates later behavior and will increase an individual’s probability of having a certain set of experiences.
Dr. Steinberg’s research has focused on a range of topics that I find especially important, including adolescent brain development, risk-taking and decision-making. This research is particularly important to me because the structural and functional aspects of brain development during early adolescence is relevant to the understanding of the psychological development and the developmental tasks of teens. This information can help parents and others understand why adolescents act the way they do and how to positively deal with their behaviors.
The flow state also implies a kind of focused attention a sense of mindfulness I feel particularly strong when I am studying. In order to stay focused I need to do daily exercise-- which includes yoga. I believe there must be a balance between, mind, body, and spirit to achieve optimum “flow.”
Dr. Caliguiri,
I appreciate your statement, "Time, however, is often embedded in perception rather than reality." It is so common to hear very young mothers (early to mid 20's) say that they will either drop out of college or settle for a lower degree status because they "just don't have time". This is a sad state of affairs and a mind set that perpetuates not only poverty but decreases opportunity for all American women in the work place. Many women would feel empowered after reading your writings on how to efficiently pursue and maintain a career while also keeping up with personal obligations. I look forward to reading more of you work in the future! Thank you for the encouragement,
-LAUREN KIM
Paula,
I can definitely relate and I have found myself so engrossed in my work that hours can fly by and I deprive myself of sleep and food. A state of flow is definitely a great feeling because work is getting accomplished and a feeling of being successfully occurs. When there is not a state of flow that is when I find myself to be easily distracted by other things around me and doing anything to prevent myself from focusing to get my work done. I am not saying I am a procrastinator because I do get my work accomplished in a timely manner, but it is easy to get distracted when not in the state of flow. I feel the state of flow mostly with my education and not so much with my current employment. I do enjoy my job, but at times I feel like a robot and I just do the same things over and over without applying much thought. It must be that the level of challenge is not there for me.
I would agree with you that one of the greatest barriers holding us people back from starting a new career is people do not feel they have time to start something new, but also because they are afraid of stepping outside of their elements and starting a new career. It is difficult to step outside of your norms because there is always fear of failure. So many people stay in their current careers no mater if it is not challenging or rewarding for them, because there are afraid of change. Flow in a career is created when a person is in a career field that they love and enjoy and actually look forward to going to each day. A career should not be selected on the rate of salary because that does not always meet the career field that a person loves and then they end up regretting their career decisions later. Once the correct career is selected that makes you happy then the rest will fall into place and a state of flow occurs.
Paula:
I really enjoyed reading this blog. It has really allowed me to search deep within to find out if ever, I have achieved my 'flow'. I am only 24 years old and i can't say I have had much work experience as I was in the Navy right out of high school then I became a stay-at-home mom. The greatest joy in my life is spending all of my time with my son however, recently it has been getting to me. I don't know if it is because I have lost myself or that I just really need to have an adult conversation with someone other than my husband, either way I embarked on an adventure to try and light that spark from within. My adventure took me to Craig's list and this is where I found my current employment. About three weeks ago I decided to apply for a job listing of "behavioral therapist" for a certain organization. They were looking for highly motivated people who were obtaining their degree in psychology, or another of the social sciences and really loved kids. Well that is me in a nutshell so I went for it. I went in for the interview, got a call back two days later and I got the job. YAY! Then I attended training for a week and half and now I am "out in the field". My job is part time everyday for three hours working with children who have autism. I have two children who I tutor and I go to their house and try to help them be more productive given their current developmental disabilities with individual programs set up to guide me.
What is the point of this story? Well my point is that I think I have found my 'flow'. Even though I do love being with my son, I am now able to contribute to more than just my life in my little bubble, as I call it. My tutoring sessions are for 3 hours every other day for each child and I feel like those sessions fly by when I am with them. I am still able to be with my son for most of the day and still be a part of something bigger than myself. I'm not sure if this 'high' will last forever, but for now it fits my life perfectly and I couldn't be happier.
Thanks for the great blog post, I never viewed my new found career as having a bigger purpose.
Heather
I believe I've achieved flow in my career when I have fully understood the depth, time and needs of all aspects of it. I am at an age where I have had a few jobs and once I fulfill a flow of my job, I get bored. I am now working and going to school to hopefully find a career this time that keeps me challenged. My current job is working in a foundation where I plan all the events and assist with programs but the directors basically oversee these duties and haven't "gone out of the box" lately so I am stuck with working on the same types of programs and events. I am very excited about the direction my life is going to take and at age 42, it is the second chapter of my life, or maybe my third or fourth. We will have to see. Dina
How true, once I get my groove time seems to stand still. I suppose it is a lot like a runners high. Thanks for your blogs they are inspirational and motivating...
I really like the concept of flow, which I have felt consistently in two areas of my life. One is when I am outside, preferably running or biking. I can do those for hours.
The other was when I was living in Hong Kong and traveling around the region for work and pleasure. I was challenged every day and in every way. Language was a challenge, ordering food was a challenge, understanding cultural nuances was a challenge. Except for ordering a tall coffee at Starbuck's (whether in Hong Kong, Shanghai, Singapore, or Melbourne), everything was novel and as a result, totally energizing.
Imagine if organizations could find a way to create a workplace where every employee could experience flow in their daily lives.
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