Striking sparks of interest

I've been lately musing on creativity and satisfaction - in work, at home, for fun, for business, for career. How do each of us find the thing where we feel connected to what we are doing, with a sense of purpose and meaning?

Many paths of exploring ideas around this have led me to the writings of Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, a professor of psychology who is very well-known for his work into "flow", including "human strengths such as optimism, creativity, intrinsic motivation, and responsibility". (his work was referenced in Dan Pink's recent book Drive)

(Side note: According to the articles I've read, you pronounce his name as "Mee-high CHICK-sent-me-high-ee". Apparently those that know Csikszentmihalyi, call him 'Mike'. )

In one of the articles I read, Csikszentmihalyi shared some suggestions on how to live a more creative life. And I'm thinking too, that through practising these tips, those connections we look for might be found also. So here they are:

Enhancing your creativity and happiness

• Try to be surprised by something every day.
• Try to surprise at least one person every day.
• Write down each day what surprised you and how you surprised others.
• When something strikes a spark of interest, follow it.
• Recognize that if you do anything well it becomes enjoyable.
• To keep enjoying something, increase its complexity.
• Make time for reflection and relaxation.
• Find out what you like and what you hate about life.
• Start doing more of what you love and less of what you hate.
• Find a way to express what moves you.
• Look at problems from as many viewpoints as possible.
• Produce as many ideas as possible.
• Have as many different ideas as possible.
• Try to produce unlikely ideas.

I practised no. 4 today (When something strikes a spark of interest, follow it). It drew me through many paths on the web to the journal article where these tips were published, and I've shared them here, with you.