Work and Life Satisfaction

B-1 What is flow?

Across various occupations, attitudes toward work tend to fall into one of three categories (Wrzesniewski et al., 1997, 2001). Some people view their work as a job, an unfulfilling but necessary way to make money. Others view their work as a career. Their present position may not be ideal, but it is at least a rung on a ladder leading to increasingly better options. The third group views their work as a calling. For them, work is a fulfilling and socially useful activity. Of all these groups, those who see their work as a calling report the highest satisfaction with their work and their lives.

Sometimes, notes Gene Weingarten (2002), a humor writer knows “when to just get out of the way.” Here are some sample job titles from the U.S. Department of Labor Dictionary of Occupational Titles: animal impersonator, human projectile, banana ripening-room supervisor, impregnator, impregnator helper, dope sprayer, finger waver, rug scratcher, egg smeller, bottom buffer, cookie breaker, brain picker, hand pouncer, bosom presser, mother repairer.

This finding would not surprise Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (1990, 1999). He has observed that people’s quality of life increases when they are purposefully engaged. Between the anxiety of being overwhelmed and stressed, and the apathy of being underwhelmed and bored, lies flow. In this intense, focused state, our skills are totally engaged, and we lose our awareness of self and time. Can you recall being in a zonedout flow state while playing a video game or text messaging? If so, then perhaps you can sympathize with the two Northwest Airlines pilots who in 2009 were so focused on their laptops that they missed Earth-to-pilot messages from their control tower. The pilots flew 150 miles past their Minneapolis destination—and lost their jobs.

LIFE DISRUPTED Playing and socializing online are ever-present sources of distraction. It takes energy to resist checking our phones, and time to refocus mental concentration after each disrupting buzz. Such regular interruptions make it difficult to be productive and to achieve flow offline, and argue for scheduled separations from our handheld devices.
Blend Images-Hill Street Studios/Matthew Palmer

Csikszentmihalyi (Chick-SENT-me-hi) came up with the flow concept while studying artists who spent hour after hour wrapped up in a project. After painting or sculpting for hours as if nothing else mattered, they finished and appeared to forget about the project. The artists seemed driven less by the external rewards for producing their art—money, praise, promotion—than by the internal rewards for creating the work. They do what they love, and love what they do.

B-2

Fascinated, Csikszentmihalyi broadened his observations. He studied dancers, chess players, surgeons, writers, parents, mountain climbers, sailors, and farmers. His research included Australians, North Americans, Koreans, Japanese, and Italians. Participants ranged from the teen years to the golden years. A clear principle emerged: It’s exhilarating to flow with an activity that fully engages our skills. Flow experiences boost our sense of self-esteem, competence, and well-being. Idleness may sound like bliss, but purposeful work enriches our lives. Busy people are happier (Hsee et al., 2010; Robinson & Martin, 2008). One research team interrupted people on about a quarter-million occasions (using a smart-phone app), and found people’s minds wandering 47 percent of the time. They were, on average, happier when not mind-wandering (Killingsworth & Gilbert, 2010). (For some tips on enriching your own work life, see Close-Up: Finding Your Own Flow.)

C L O S E - U P

Finding Your Own Flow

Want to identify your own path to flow? You can start by pinpointing your strengths and the types of work that may prove satisfying and successful. Marcus Buckingham and Donald Clifton (2001) have suggested asking yourself four questions.

  1. What activities give me pleasure? (Bringing order out of chaos? Playing host? Helping others? Challenging sloppy thinking?)
  2. What activities leave me wondering, “When can I do this again?” (Rather than “When will this be over?”)
  3. What sorts of challenges do I relish? (And which do I dread?)
  4. What sorts of tasks do I learn easily? (And which do I struggle with?)

You may find your skills engaged and time flying when teaching or selling or writing or cleaning or consoling or creating or repairing. If an activity feels good, if it comes easily, if you look forward to it, then look deeper. You’ll see your strengths at work (Buckingham, 2007). (To help find your own strengths, take the “Brief Strengths Test” at www.authentichappiness.sas.upenn.edu. Free registration is required.)

Top performers are “rarely well rounded” (Buckingham & Clifton, 2001, p. 26). Satisfied and successful people devote far less time to correcting their weaknesses than to sharpening their existing skills. Given how stable our traits and temperaments are, this is probably wise. There may be limits to the benefits of assertiveness training if you are shy, or of public speaking courses if you tend to be nervous and soft-spoken. Drawing classes may not help much if you express your artistic side in stick figures. But identifying your talents can help you recognize the activities you learn quickly and find absorbing. Knowing your strengths, you can develop them further.

As Robert Louis Stevenson said in Familiar Studies of Men and Books (1882), “To be what we are, and to become what we are capable of becoming, is the only end of life.”

RETRIEVE + REMEMBER

Question 17.1

What is the value of finding flow in our work?

We become more likely to view our work as fulfilling and socially useful.