"Self Actualization is the intrinsic growth of what is already in the organism, or more accurately, of what the organism is." Abraham Maslow.
Maslow argued: Humans intuitively have a natural drive to become the best possible persons in terms of both physical and mental health, including a high level of spiritual achievement.
While undertaking the journey towards achieving the best, they go through the exercise of fulfilling a multiple set of needs which Maslow argued "are arranged like a ladder in the following order:"
1.Basic needs like air,water, food and sleep at the bottom.
2.Moving up progressively with safety, security and stability.
3.Followed by psychological, or social needs for belonging, love and acceptance
4.Finally esteem needs to feel achievement, status, responsibility and reputation.
5.Ultimately moving towards acquiring good values, kindness, courage, honesty, love, unselfishness and goodness.
Maslow insisted: Humans are basically good and they have the capacity to be efficient, healthy and happy persons but, they must nurture this capacity with awareness, honesty and introspection.
Maslow suggested: The following eight ways to self Actualize-
1. Experience things fully, vividly and selflessly. Throw yourself into the experiencing of something, concentrate on it fully, and let it totally absorb you.
2. Make the growth choice a dozen times a day. Life is an ongoing process of choosing between safety (out of fear and need for defense) and risk (for the sake of progress and growth)
3. Let the self emerge. Try to shut out the external clues as to what you should think, feel, say, and so on, and let your experience enable you to say what you truly feel.
4. When in doubt, be honest. If you look into yourself and are honest, you will also take responsibility. Taking responsibility is self-actualizing.
5. Listen to your own tastes and be prepared to be unpopular.
6. Use your intelligence. Work to do well the things you want to do, no matter how insignificant they seem to be.
7. Make peak experiencing more likely. Get rid of illusions and false notions. Learn what you are good at and what your potentialities are not.
8. Find out who you are, what you like and don't like, what is good and what is bad for you, where you are going, what your mission is. Opening yourself up to yourself in this way means identifying defenses and then finding the courage to give them up.
Humanistic psychology, as Maslow's theory popularly known as, gave rise to several different therapies: All guided by the idea that, people possess the inner resources for growth and healing and the objective of therapy is to help them remove their mental obstacles for achieving success in life.
However, a recent modification of Maslow's theory - claiming that self-actualization is interesting and important but it isn't an evolutionary fundamental need - putting parenting atop the revamped pyramid has created some controversies -- as reported by Science Daily.
Some of the proposed deviations appear to be quite valid in the current context like over-lapping of needs, which, according to researchers, don't disappear completely as argued by Maslow but co-exist -- and I tend to agree!
References:
http://www.edpsycinteractive.org/topics/conation/maslow.html
http://www.abraham-maslow.com/amIndex.asp
http://www.businessballs.com/maslow.htm
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maslow's_hierarchy_of_needs
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/…/100819112118.htm
