"A joyful life is an individual creation that cannot be copied from a recipe." ― Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi is the father of the concept of "flow". Flow is a state of complete absorption in an activity characterized by a balance between challenges and skills, resulting in effortless concentration, enjoyment, and fulfilment.
He spent his life studying how athletes, artists and highly productive people experience flow to understand how we can all get into that state. Somehow, he even came up with a recipe.
Csikszentmihalyi's recipe for achieving flow comprises eight key elements or ingredients: clear goals and immediate feedback, action-awareness merger, the balance between challenge and skills, inner clarity, the transformation of time, autotelic experience, effortlessness and ease, and loss of self-consciousness.
Yet, despite his fantastic work and discoveries about flow, Csikszentmihalyi knew that a joyful life is an individual creation that cannot be copied from a recipe.
So, don't fall into the trap of the illusion of the recipe for a successful and joyful life that so many successful people want to sell you. Sure, there's a lot to learn from everyone, particularly those who created a successful life for themselves. But in the end, you have to create your own unique way.