Happiness Week 2: Chasing Superiority vs Pursuing Flow

This third post in my series on happiness sums up week 2 of the study course I am following on http://www.coursera.org called A Life of Happiness and Fulfillment: https://www.coursera.org/learn/happiness
To see all the posts in this series go to http://lublenok.blogspot.com/search/label/ALHF

Week 2 of the course discusses the second deadly happiness sin: Chasing Superiority and its counterpart habit of Pursuing Flow.

Chasing Superiority is about comparing oneself to other people as to how rich, beautiful, successful, famous, powerful we are, and wanting to be better than anybody else at one thing or another.

Reasons why we chase superiority:
1. To get others's approval
2. We feel good when we win
3. We feel we are progressing towards mastery
4. We have a greater sense of autonomy

Effects of chasing superiority on happiness:

Reasons why pursuit of superiority lowers happiness:

1. Social comparisons to others. There will always be people who are better than you, this leads to envy and separates us from others. Interestingly, we are most likely to feel envious when someone close to us does better than us on a dimension that's relevant to us.

2. Materialism. It is easier to compare oneself to others based on materialistic criteria (money, possessions, fame), rather than the dimensions that really matter (skills, talents, qualities), which are hard to gauge. And materialism makes us unhappy, because 1) it makes us lonely, separated from other people; 2) adaptation, meaning that satisfaction from materialistic possessions does not last long

3. Others like us less when we seek superiority. Because we become more self-centered and care less for others, and then others start caring less for us.

Yet many people think that: drive for superiority should lead to higher achievement, right? But this turns out not to be the case. It's been proven by various scientific experiments that higher incentive leads to worse performance when the task at hand requires conceptual, creative thinking!

The reasons for this counter-intuitive phenomenon is that the stress coming from the desire to perform takes away some of the brain's capacity, lowering productivity and performance at intellectual tasks. The pressure to perform may help to motivate us, but won't make us perform better and will lower our happiness level.

I personally have indeed a great desire and drive for superiority. And in many was now I recognize that it stands in the way of my performance, taking away vital energy needed to perform and making me worry about how others judge my work. But what's the alternative? The alternative turns out to be the experience of flow, something I have experienced on many occasions.

Flow makes us happy!

People are happiest when they do something meaningful. It also turns out that the common theme of people's meaningful experiences is: flow.

Characteristics of flow:

1. Distorted perception of time: Time seems to slow down, but when the flow experience is over, time seems to have passed really fast.
2. Lack of self-consciousness: you are so absorbed in the activity, that there is no excessive capacity left over to judge how you are doing.
3. Intense focus on the present moment: 

When does flow happen?

1. Flow happens in the border area between anxiety and boredom. When your current skill levels are slightly less than the skill levels required for the task at hand.
2. The quality of a flow experience is much higher when the skills level is high.

Why flow enhances happiness

1. Flow is enjoyable in the moment: flow experiences are meaningful, and people enjoy meaningful experiences. They also bring about new, creative, original ways of doing things.
2. Charisma: when in high flow, you become more charismatic and more likable by others. Flow is not a finite resource, and is even contagious. It's not a zero sum like money.
3. Flow leads to mastery

Why flow enhances success

Anyone at the top of their game in any field has experienced at least 10,000 hours of flow in their domain of expertise, which is roughly equivalent to 10 years. So rather than seeking superiority, you better think about how you are going to experience 10000 hours of flow-like states.

But how do we find out what to be a master at? As a kid, we seem to know what we want to be, but then we settle for a practical job that puts bread on the table. Practical job = a job in which our heart is not into it. We become automatons, doing jobs we don't find meaningful.

We can't be happy unless we experience flow on a regular basis, and we can't experience flow unless we do something meaningful, challenging and enjoyable.

How to get flow back into your life?

1. Find yourself a hobby. But you need to challenge yourself, because flow only happens when you stretch yourself.
2. Find flow at work by:
1. Identifying your talents and nurturing them. Bend your job, take more responsibility, etc.
2. Identifying what your community needs and find ways to meet those needs
3. Identifying what you enjoy doing: spend a couple of hours every week meeting people who do what you would like doing, experiment

Mitigating drive for superiority

Self-Compassion

People believe that they need a lot of criticism and negative self-talk to motivate themselves.

When things are going badly for us, what we need is self-compassion:

1. treating ourselves with the same kindness, care and concern as we would a good friend 
2. recognizing our common humanity, every time we fail, it is an opportunity to connect with others
3. mindfulness, being present with what is and accepting what is

Self-compassion is not the same thing as self-pity and self-indulgence.

How to practice self-compassion:

1. Talk to yourself as you would to a good friend if he were in your situation
2. Write yourself a compassionate letter

Gratitude

1. Expressing gratitude strengthens bonds and relationships
2. It forms a bridge between hubristic pride and connection
3. Makes you feel other-centered rather than self-centered
4. Helps you mitigate the need for superiority
5. Helps boost happiness in many ways

Assignment:

The assignment for this week was to write a gratitude letter to somebody who has been important in your life. I wrote and gave my letter to my wife Luda!