How to have more peak experiences

For the next 5 minutes, let’s elevate your career.

In today’s email:

• How to have more peak experiences

• Create with colleagues

• Work with your strengths

• Creative hobbies

• Leonardo da Vinci as career coach

ON YOUR CAREER

How to have more peak experiences

Peak work experiences include those times when we feel most involved and most effective. This brings happiness. The concept of peak experiences is grounded in the studies by Abraham Maslow and overlaps with research on flow states by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (pronounced MEE-hy CHEEK-sent-mee-HAH-yee). Along with Martin Seligman, these three psychologists are pioneers of positive psychology.

Csikszentmihalyi studied how artists, especially painters, became so absorbed by their work that many ignored their need for food and even sleep. They didn’t notice the passing of time. Many of the painters described their experience as like floating on a river. This experience of ‘floating’ in our work came to be known as flow.

Creating with colleagues and working with our strengths are two powerful ways we achieve flow and have peak experiences in our careers.

COMMUNICATION

Create with colleagues

There is no work I enjoy more than brainstorming and creating with colleagues. Collective endeavour is like 1 + 1 + 1 = 8. Building something together is filled with flow and a sense of accomplishment. And celebrating team victories is better than individual victories.

PRODUCTIVITY

Work with your strengths

When we work with our strengths, we are much more productive than when we work with non-strengths. The compounded difference of this productivity is large for a year. It’s massive when compounded for a career. Work with your strengths for a productive, enjoyable career.

Martin Seligman and Christopher Peterson identified ‘24 character strengths that make up what’s best about our personality’. You can explore your signature strengths here.

1 MINUTE TO LOWER STRESS

Hobbies

Hobbies make us happier. We can experience a cocktail of the feel good chemicals oxytocin, dopamine, and serotonin when we immerse ourselves in a hobby. We don’t need to be painting like Da Vinci. Everyday hobbies like cooking and gardening also elevate our mood. We get in a state of flow and forget worries from work and broader life.

I coach a CFO who was in the habit of sixty-hour work-weeks without much leisure. She was caught-up in the tyranny of when: ‘when we complete end of year accounts’, ‘when we complete the audit’ etc then I will have more leisure. There is no perfect time to have more leisure nor enjoy a hobby. The CFO decided to resume her hobby of photography. Most weekends she now spends two to three hours photographing by the coast.

GET SMARTER

Leonardo da Vinci

Leonardo da Vinci (1452 - 1519) was a polymath. His genius ranged painting, sculpting, engineering, architecture, geology, astronomy, anatomy, and more. Today, Leonardo remains famous for his paintings. The Mona Lisa attracts large queues at the Louvre and Salvator Mundi is the highest-selling painting at USD 450 million.

Leonardo dreamt big. He was a prolific creator and inventor. Leonardo’s sketchbooks were filled with designs of flying machines, water systems, and solar power. Some inventions were realised in his lifetime: automated winders for weaving and a machine to test the strength of wire. Leonardo demonstrated the power of imagination combined with the desire to execute. Some of his wisdom: