Behaviors Leading to Self-Actualization

Source: Maslow, Living Psychology, 1967, pp. 281-284

(1.) Self-actualization processes begin to occur by experiencing fully, vividly, selflessly, with full concentration and total absorption.

(1.) To become totally absorbed in a task; to lose yourself in a job or while interacting with another person or other people.

(2.) One moves toward self actualization by thinking of life as a process of choices, one after another. These choices involve being honest with oneself and others or being dishonest; whether to tell the truth or lie.

(2.) To make choices that seem right to you as a unique person. To be honest in your feelings with yourself and others. Not to be phony.

(3.) When one realizes that one has a unique self to express and one begins to express how to feel about things, this is considered to be moving along the road toward self-actualization.

(3.) To realize that you are a unique person. To listen to yourself, rather than do what others have taught you to do or believe.

(4.) When in doubt, be honest rather than not.

(4.) Be responsible toward yourself by being honest in responding to the world. Or, when in doubt, act according to your impulses.

(5.) When one dares to listen to oneself...at each moment in life, and to say calmly, "No, I don't like such and such." To be courageous rather than afraid is another version of the same thing.

(5.) To speak out and say how you feel about a painting or an unusual situation, even if you risk being unpopular.

(6.) Self-actualization is not only an end state, but also the process of actualizing one's potentialities at any time, in any amount.

(6.) Using your intelligence; working hard to be the best you can in whatever field you want to go into. It may mean going through a period of time when you work very hard in order to attain a certain goal.

(7.) Peak experiences are transient moments of self-actualization.

(7.) When you become one with your environment, another person or an object such as a tree, a sunset, etc.

(8.) Finding out who one is, what one is, what one likes, what one doesn't like, what is good for one and what bad, where one is going and what one's mission is--opening oneself up to one's self--means the exposure of psychopathology. Inadequate ways of relating to oneself, others, and the world in general.

(8.) When we get to know ourselves, there may be things that we see that we don't like; things that get in the way of seeing the world and others as they are. We have to learn to drop these; this may be painful.