Have you ever heard of positive psychology?
Positive psychology is a recent branch (not even 20 years old) of psychology that focuses on personal satisfaction and growth rather than focusing on pathology (or mental illness itself), as conventional branches of psychology does.
Positive psychology research has found that being able to improve happiness is complex and can be accomplished in a variety of ways. There is no one size fits all formula for attaining happiness.
One area of research is what is called the good life, which focuses on engagement and immersion in activities as the way to finding fulfillment. This engagement is referred to as flow.
Flow is when we are in a state where our own abilities match well the tasks we are doing. It is typified by intense concentration, a loss of self-awareness, being neither bored nor overwhelmed yet satisfactorily challenged, and the feeling that time has flown by. Flow is rewarding, and us such can motivate us to completing goals and improving skills.
On the other hand, if we don’t experience flow because the challenge overwhelmes our current skillset, we end up becoming anxious. Conversely, if we’re too skilled for the task at hand, we become bored.
To learn more about flow, check our this TED Talk by Dr. Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, one of the leading positive psychologists: