The Autotelic Experience
In this post we dive a bit deeper into the flow concept, explaining what an autotelic experience and an autotelic personality is. It didn’t seem to fit into the Flow article but I thought it was important enough to share. If you haven’t read the complete article I encourage you to do that first (Click here). Enjoy!
“Repeatedly we question the necessity of our actions, and evaluate critically the reasons for carrying them out.”
Because of the good feeling we have during Flow, this state has a way to push the activity into being intrinsically rewarding. Even if in the beginning we might have signed up to that activity for other reasons, we find that the experience of what we are doing becomes the reward in itself.
This self-rewarding activity is what an autotelic experience is. The word itself is a combination of the two Greek words: “auto” meaning self and “telos” meaning goal.
In Mihály Csíkszentmihályi own words: “It refers to a self-contained activity, one that is done not with the expectation of some future benefit, but simply because the doing itself is the reward.”
This acts in opposite with what is called an exotelic experience, in which we do something merely for what we get out of it. The way we experience something as being autotelic or exotelic will most likely change the amount of time you can spend in it in a flow state. It’s harder to find the necessary curiosity and focus in the here and now if your attention is pointed towards a later external reward.
Activities are never fully autotelic or exotelic, but a gradation between the two, for example: even if you love your work you still need to make a living out of it.
If you’re passionate about what you’re doing, this can also affect the way you treat your work. As most established professionals can tell you, there is a healthy balance between how much to give and how much to ask. When you are starting out in any adventure it is always easier for autotelic people to undersell they services because of the pleasure they get from the job, but actually, your passion is exactly what usually makes your services loaded with value.
As a side effect of experience being mainly autotelic we find that focusing on the present moment, the journey instead of the destination, has its own privileges. We tend to focus more on the details that make the whole instead of dreaming about the end goal, creating joy in perfecting each of the small components that will make in turn the whole shine brighter (Read more). A true masterpiece comes from the care, patience, and attention placed in the process because every part of our project is important, rarely anything good comes from the need to make a big splash.
The Autotelic Personality
Some people might have been born more skilled, or simply learned to control consciousness better than others and so it’s easier for them to find enjoyment, meaning and purpose even in the more trivial activities of the daily life.
Having an autotelic personality, they choose a lifestyle that is guided by curiosity and joy that comes from within. They are rarely driven by external rewards, their gratification generally comes from doing rather than having, from pushing beyond their limits and finding new challenges. These types are much harder to control with external pressure and they tend to be autonomous.
You can usually recognize the autotelic people by their lack of need of material possessions, their openness, and genuine curiosity, the seemingly inexhaustible energy they seem to have, all by-products of their inner drive and total immersion in whatever they are doing (Read more).
Needless to say that they tend to find and be in a flow state more easily than the average, even when washing the dishes, or sitting alone with nothing to do.
Having more control over consciousness helps to make whatever they do intrinsically rewarding and by so doing makes them live a happier life. As a side effect, being deeply connected to what they’re doing makes them better suited to tolerate more stressful situations and temporary setbacks.
Here is a good example of the Autotelic Experience by Adam Westbrook: Vincent van Gogh
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All the best
References
Csíkszentmihályi, Mihaly. (1990). Flow: The psychology of optimal experience.