a rough plan

Once you have your values figured out, listyour goals. Big and small, what 10 or 15 thingsdo you want to accomplish in the next tenyears? Look at how those match up with yourvalues and strengths, and make a rough planfor when you’ll work toward them and whichone or two you’ll tackle first.

Get yourgratifying work from that—do what it will taketo achieve your goals.As you align yourself with your values and dochallenging work that calls on your strengths,you will find yourself absorbed in what you’redoing. Sometimes time will pass without yournotice, and you won’t be aware of yourself oryour surroundings, just absorbed in your work.That’s called the flow state. You become onewith your work. This is the source of deepgratification and great accomplishment. Here’swhat Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, who named theflow state, has to say about it:_It is the full involvement of flow,
rather than happiness, that makes forexcellence in life. When we are in flow,we are not happy, because to experiencehappiness we must focus on our innerstates, and that would take awayattention from the task at hand... Onlyafter the task is completed do we havethe leisure to look back on what hashappened, and then we are flooded withgratitude for the excellence of thatexperience—then, in retrospect, we arehappy... The happiness that follows flowis of our own making, and it leads toincreasing complexity and growth inconsciousness._You’ll never get the flow state by watching tv,but activities like rock climbing, writing, skiing,painting, dancing, or programming are goodcandidates. For an activity to invoke the flowstate, it must:_ require concentration
_ be challenging but a good match for your
skills_ provide immediate feedback
_ represent a harmony between what you
feel, want, and think.