Self-actualization: How To Find Yourself

2024 Author: Harry Day | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 15:43

Tatiana Ushakova

Psychologist

Considering the topic "striving for excellence", we found out that this is the path of even more withdrawal from oneself, the path to nowhere. Today I propose to consider the topic of self-actualization, or the path along which you can find yourself.

Each of us appeared on Earth for a reason, and each of us has its own purpose. And we came to this world to realize our inner potential. What is your potential? What abilities do you have?

"Yes, not any!" or “I don’t even know my abilities” are the most frequent answers to such questions. And at the same time, every person in the depths of his soul dreams of becoming someone. But how can you become that desired “someone” if you don’t guess about your abilities and don’t see them? That is why there are so few people in our world who realize their true abilities.

Who is a self-actualized person?

One who seeks to make full use of his talent, his abilities and his potential.

Well, well, if a person does not know his abilities, then at some point there is still a desire to learn them. Find out who I am and why I am. Someone has a strong desire, someone weak, and someone does not even think about it. And if this desire - to know oneself and find one's own abilities - has appeared, such a person begins to know himself.

Abraham Maslow: “Musicians must play music, artists must paint, poets must write poetry, if, after all, they want to be at peace with themselves. People should be who they can be. They must be true to their nature."

When a person embarks on this path of self-knowledge, he immediately encounters two main obstacles: the need for security and the need for respect. It is these needs that prevent us from moving forward. A person can talk about "growth" for a very long time and intelligently, but he will still remain in that and with what he knew and got used to.

The first thing to do when a person embarks on the path of self-actualization is to find a sense of security in himself. "I have me, and I myself will never betray or abandon myself." And it should not be just words, it should become an internal state!

"Everyone threw me!"

"Where are you? Have you abandoned yourself too?"

As long as a person has a strong need for security, he is not able to build something new.

Safety is to keep all the weeds and try to grow a rose among them. And if you close your eyes to the weeds, do not weed them, then sooner or later they will strangle this rose. There will be only the semblance of movement forward - the field is covered with weeds all the time with dried sprouts of something new. Therefore, the courage to admit our "weeds" is an indispensable component of self-actualization.

The second is to stop demanding respect from others, to understand and recognize that in your essence you are already perfect. And actions - we do nothing to our own detriment. If we commit some seemingly unseemly act, then we commit it only because it brings us (our personality) satisfaction, otherwise we would not have done it. This is another interesting topic and we will talk about it in detail another time.

The process of knowing yourself is always a willingness to take risks, make mistakes, abandon old habits. But this is not a struggle with old habits and limitations. This is the search for what prevents you from moving forward and the courage to do it differently.

Only through courage can you open up to new ideas, new experiences that can lead to the top, and maybe even to failure. But the awareness that every lesson is for good will lead you along the path of growth. And this is already a personal path, not imposed by the environment - what is right and what is not right.

Moreover, the process of coming to oneself is slow and painful. This is a constant flow, not a fixed achievement. That is why so many people refuse it. It's always nice to achieve something and sit on your laurels without doing anything else.

But no one can force a person to take the path of self-actualization. It is only a conscious choice - to become who you can be.

The next action is composure and concentration. Access to effective perception of reality. And effective perception of reality is the ability to perceive the world impartially, to constantly be aware of what is happening in reality inside and around a person. Determine at what point a person is, how he himself creates what surrounds him.

Learn to see the surrounding reality as it is, with all its pluses and minuses, and not as we would like to see it. The most interesting thing is that such a vision gives the ability to distinguish between falsehood and dishonesty. Hopes, expectations, anxieties and fears will no longer affect the perception of reality.

Further - the study of their inner nature and action in accordance with it. Learn to decide for ourselves what we like best. Not what is right and what is wrong, but what you like and what you don't like, where you get real pleasure. What films do you like more, what thoughts, ideas, regardless of the opinions of others.

All this leads to the fact that a person does not lose the sense of the joy of life. He easily accepts other people and humanity as a whole, without trying to control, teach, remake others, "adjust" for himself. A person becomes free and those around him provide freedom of choice and freedom of expression. Excessive feelings of guilt, shame, anxiety cease to burden, supercriticality disappears towards one's shortcomings and weaknesses.

The next step is to learn to be honest with yourself. Take responsibility for your actions, deeds and thoughts. And the main thing here is to stop looking for excuses and shift the blame on others for your actions, your thoughts, stop striving to be good for everyone. You cannot please everyone in this world, because the task is not to become even more convenient for others, but to find yourself.

The next thing is to learn to act in accordance with your judgments, sensibly assess your needs, figure out which ones are inherent in you, and which ones are induced by society, parents, and the environment. All this contributes to the most accurate decision - what is necessary and what is right specifically for a given person.

Thanks to this, interaction with others is already being built without the desire to produce an effect and amaze with something. "Showiness" disappears and naturalness, simplicity and spontaneity appear. And this already leads to the ability to easily adapt to the surrounding reality, such a quality as tolerance appears. But with all this, if there is a need to be irreconcilable and, despite the threat of condemnation or rejection, his opinion is expressed without hesitation.

Further action is to understand your potential capabilities. Find what brings you the most satisfaction, where you feel your talent, and develop that to perfection. Maybe you are a good cook and by developing your talent, you could become a chef whose skill is admired.

Maybe you know how to organize holidays, create unique author's things … Find what you do best and do everything in your power to become a high-class specialist, as far as your abilities allow.

But without using his talent, a person will do boring and boring work, just because it is well paid for it or it gives a state of security. The result is an unsatisfied state of consciousness.

Maslow argued that the self-actualizing people he studied were not perfect and were not even free from major flaws, but they were all, without exception, committed to some task, duty, vocation. They were not self-centered, but focused on problems beyond their immediate needs. It can be said about them that they live to work, not work to live.

The next step is to understand dependent and codependent relationships.

The main need of socially "normal" people is to use other people to emphasize their importance and fill loneliness.

All steps towards self-actualization lead to a unique ability to be alone, without feeling lonely, to the ability to enjoy the wealth and fullness of friendship.

The ability to remain calm and equanimous appears even in the face of personal misfortunes and failures. All this is due to their own view of the situation without the need to rely on the opinions and feelings of others. Honors, status, prestige and popularity are becoming less important than self-development and inner growth.

The next step is to learn to enjoy. Enjoy music, the beauty of nature, masterpieces of art so that they bring inspiration. Catch these awesome states. Develop a sense of nature, music. Notice experiences of ecstasy, insight, moments of greatest passion and excitement.

Thanks to this, the ability to see and enjoy even the most insignificant events in life appears, the child's ability to wonder returns. Happiness is no longer taken for granted, life ceases to be boring and uninteresting.

A person becomes able to feel and experience peace, bliss, harmony, tranquility, love, merging with nature without artificial stimulants. At the moments of the highest experience there is a feeling of harmony with the world, the feeling of one's “I” is lost or there is going beyond its limits.

The next step is to distinguish between ends and means of achievement. Learn to enjoy the process and do just for the sake of it. For example, do not set a goal - to do physical exercise for the sake of health, but to enjoy the exercise itself.

And one of the most difficult is going beyond the limits of your personal "I".

This is accomplished by observing your defense mechanisms, recognizing their existence, and recognizing how they operate. Defense mechanisms are the main constraints and obstacles to internal growth. These are buttons, thanks to which, a person becomes completely controllable and not free.

But this is work, the work is long and painstaking, and not everyone decides on it. Only an inner realization that you came to this earth for a reason, that you have talents, that you have your own path, and a keen desire to find it, can be encouraged to such work.

The result is the release of energy for your own realization.

But it cannot be said that self-actualizing people are angels in the flesh, that they are perfect.

They, like everyone else, are subject to unconstructive and useless habits. At the same time, they can be stubborn, irritable, boring, quarrelsome, selfish and depressed. They may also contain feelings of guilt, anxiety, sadness, self-doubt.

But at the same time, they are free in their manifestations: they are capable of creativity, autonomous and self-confident, free from social and cultural influences, honest with themselves, able to give up their illusions and make full use of their abilities.

The difference between striving for excellence and self-actualization is the choice to “be” rather than “seem”. The reward is life satisfaction.

And again, briefly:

You are familiar with the action plan for self-actualization. Does the question arise - how to implement it? Hard? Interesting? Is it more pleasant to be in illusions?

We are all free to choose.