more than pleasurable, but truly enjoyable. When Csikszentmihalyi asked
people to identify one such experience, he found a wide variety of answers
(Csikszentmihalyi, 1990, 1999; Csikszentmihalyi & Csikszentmihalyi, 1988).
Some people talked about mountain climbing, others about playing tennis,
others about performing surgery. But when he asked people to describe the
experience, he found they used surprisingly similar terms.
Csikszentmihalyi ’s participants talked about becoming so involved in
what they were doing that nothing else seemed to matter. Climbing the
mountain or performing the surgery demanded all their attention. Although
each step seemed to flow almost automatically to the next, the task was al-
most always challenging and demanded the person ’s full concentration.
Reaching the goal provided a sense of mastery, but the real pleasure came
from the process rather than the achievement.
Csikszentmihalyi refers to these moments as optimal experience. Because
people typically describe a feeling of being caught in a natural, almost ef-
fortless movement from one step to the next, psychologists sometimes refers
to the experience as flow. Optimal experiences are intensely enjoyable, but
they are usually not restful, relaxing moments. On the contrary, most often
flow experiences are quite demanding. “The best moments usually occur
when a person ’s body or mind is stretched to its limits in a voluntary
effort to accomplish somethin g difficult and worthwhile, ”Csikszentmihalyi
explains. “Optimal experience is thus something that we make happen ”
(1990, p. 3).
Interestingly, the flow experience is described in fairly identical terms by
people of all ages and in all cultures. After examining thousands of descrip-
tions of people ’s most satisfying and enjoyable moments, Csikszentmihalyi
(1990) identified eight characteristics of the flow experience. These are listed
in Table 11.1. Not every flow experience contains each of these eight, but
any flow experience you can think of probably includes many of these com-ponents. The flow experience that comes to mind for me happens when I be-
come lost in my writing. I sometimes find myself writing for hours, almost
totally unaware of anything around me. I become so absorbed in what I ’m
doing that I ’ve written through ringing telephones and important meetings.
When I finally stop after 3 or 4 hours, it often seems as if I had been workingfor only 10 minutes.
Optimal Experience and Happiness in Everyday Activities
Like other humanistic theorists, Csiks zentmihalyi recognizes that many peo-
ple suffer from a sense that their lives have no meaning. Some people re-
spond to this feeling by acquiring mate rial possessions. Some turn to fitness
c e n t e r sa n dp l a s t i cs u r g e r yi na ne f f o r tt oh a n go nt oy o u t h .O t h e r st r yo u t
new and seemingly mystical religions . But Csikszentmihalyi (1999) argues
that none of these diversions brings permanent happiness. True happiness
comes when we take personal responsibility for finding meaning and enjoy-ment in our ongoing experiences. That is, we can enjoy life to its fullest
by discovering what makes us feel alive (i.e., optimal experiences) and then
doing it.The Psychology of Opt imal Experience 291