How to feel better than medium

Our happiness model explained, courtesy of Mikhail Csikszentmihaly

I ask myself a few questions as I explore my way through my first Medium post. What do I wish to be known for in this new platform? How does this platform differentiate from the myriad of other communities out there? Should I post here as well my blog at Sideways Thoughts? How am I feeling right now?

Most of those questions can wait. This is all familiar territory, having flirted with Tumblr, played with Blogger and toyed with Wordpress before settling on my self-hosted Wordpress blog. I will hit publish and try on the Medium community like a pair of jeans, wearing them around the department store to see if they feel right when I walk around.

To avoid a completely self-referential first post, I feel I must contribute in some way while being distinct from my usual fare on Sideways Thoughts. So I will share where my head is at with regards to my current blog series on happiness and flow.

I am thinking about being happy

I am working through Mikhail Csikszentmihaly’s book Flow. By working through, I mean writing blog posts for each chapter with the intent to help as many people as possible and ensure I understand the material inside and out. Mikhail Csikszentmihaly (apparently pronounced Me high, Chick sent me high) wrote a book called Flow, a staple of the positive psychology movement.

I am a big fan of the positive psychology “movement” (yes, it is a movement), characterised by the likes of Seligman, Buckingham, Maslow and Frankle. Ping me if you want references. Essentially, it is all about moving towards what you want rather than away from what you don’t want.

In his book, Mikhail walks the reader through what he found in his research on thousands of people as he discovered what people were doing and thinking at different parts of their day. He combined his study with research on what it takes to be happy in any situation.

Are you feeling medium?

While I have read the book through a few times, I am up to chapter two in my blog series. Chapter two outlines a model of what needs to happen for people to experience flow.

“Flow is important both because it makes the present instant more enjoyable and because it builds the self-control that allows us to develop skills and make significant contributions to mankind.”

I share the basic outline of the thought process behind Flow in my blog post as:

• We become aware of and control our response to our internal and external pressures.
• We intentionally determine what information enters our consciousness.
• Our intentions are driven and directed by our attention.
• Those who are able to better direct and be in control of their intentions and manage their response to information as it enters their consciousness have improved quality of life.

My intent is not to replicate what I already wrote. But given the new platform, I use this opportunity to ask to what extent do people actually desire to have a quality life, or are most people content to feel medium? Because if, as Flow indicates, we have a choice over what happens in our consciousness, than we all must surely choose our current perspective on life.

I say this knowing it is not the case, that much of what we do is learned behaviour, genetic, and based on perceived threats and rewards from external pressures. I do, however, firmly believe that people can be made aware that how they feel is their choice. Once aware, they can fully embrace the life that is around them.

Simplistic, I know, but in my day job as a consultant and coach I often see two people in the same team with similar tasks having vastly different perspectives on life and achieve vastly different outcomes. I see most interventions as simply vehicles for making the individual aware of their choice so they can awaken from the dream and regain control of their outcomes for the benefit of themselves and mankind.

So I ask you, are you feeling medium? If so, to what extent do you feel it is something you can control? Mental illness aside (a serious issue that would be an expected caveat), are we truly in control of our consciousness?

As for me, I choose to feel pretty good as I walk around in my Medium jeans.