Existential Psychology

Self-Actualization Lasts A Lifetime

By  | 

Debates rage about the best way to insure that children become happy, healthy adults and what we lose sight of is that these discussions imply that people have no power to direct their own development. Instead they’re almost viewed as products to be manufactured where what matters is making sure the assembly line functions properly, at which point the products will efficiently spit off the conveyer belt and work the way they’re supposed to work.

But self-actualization from an existential point of view is not something that happens to you, it’s a process that you consciously direct, and it lasts a lifetime. We don’t have to stop growing intellectually and emotionally, to stop growing as people, just because our physical growth stops. Most people are unaware that they can take the reins and direct their own development any time they want to, but that doesn’t take away from the fact that this possibility always exists.

When you decide to take over the responsibility for your own growth and development, you naturally see that whatever happened to you in your family of origin is not the end all be all but instead just a starting point. Your early experiences set the tone and exert a profound influence over how you see the world, but you retain the freedom to respond to your set of circumstances as you see fit. Self-actualization lasts a lifetime, and when you decide it’s time to start directing your own development you won’t feel like a product of your environment, or like a static entity whose time for growth has passed, but as a vibrant individual capable of changing in myriad ways.

Related posts:

  1. Be Patient With Identity Development There is usually an intermediary stage during the process of identity development that can be pretty annoying for those around the person developing, largely due to the fact that these people don’t see the changes as intermediary but as fixed differences, differences that compare unfavorably to the old identity to which they had grown accustomed. […]...
  2. Growth Versus Stagnation Happy people find themselves in a state of growth. Unhappy people find themselves in a state of stagnation. Growth says “What I am today is not necessarily what I will be tomorrow.” Stagnation says “What I am now is all I will ever be.”  Growth is imbued with hope, with ever-expanding possibilities, while stagnation is […]...
  3. Depression Is Arrested Development From our existential point of view depression is the unconscious response to having abandoned the process of human development, it’s the psyche’s way of rebelling in the face of life choices that aren’t furthering growth and self-actualization. But you don’t have to agree with our analysis that depression is the result of arrested development in […]...
  4. Human Growth If we lived to be 10,000 years old maybe we could put off chasing our dreams or becoming the people we were meant to be. Many don’t adequately realize how short time really is, and they secretly believe they are going to live forever. This theme comes up over and over in therapy and I’ve […]...
  5. Striving Forward While Appreciating Where You Are The process of self-actualization seems to clash with mindfulness since self-actualization implies a striving forward, an orientation towards the future, a constant becoming, whereas mindfulness stresses full involvement with the present moment as it is. The way to rectify these two points of view is to understand self-actualization as a duality where every moment is […]...
  6. People Do Change It’s impossible to be someone you’re not but it is possible to become who you really are. Those who are absolutely certain that people don’t change are projecting; what they mean is that they themselves haven’t changed, even if they desperately wanted to. From their own subjective viewpoint it’s obvious that the same holds true […]...
  7. Resistance To Authority “Human History began with an act of disobedience and it is not unlikely that it will be terminated by an act of obedience.” – Erich Fromm In our culture we find that resistance to authority is often classified as pathological, as a criteria for dysfunction. This should be no surprise when we consider that psychology […]...
  8. Focus On Who You Are And Who You Can Be If you see yourself as a static, unchanging entity whose personality and attributes are set what you gain is powerful protection against existential anxiety but what you lose is the chance to become who you really are. If you focus exclusively on the future you gain the chance to grow but you lose the chance […]...
  9. What We Are is Becoming One of the central paradoxes of human existence is that we are most ourselves while in the process of becoming something else. A world famous elderly musician nearing the end of his life was drilling scales on his favorite instrument when a student asked him “Why do you still practice?” He patiently replied, “Because I’m […]...
  10. Waiting Patiently For Human Growth When you plant a seed, you don’t just water it one or two times and then give up, thinking “Obviously it’s never going to sprout.” You know that the process takes time, that even if conditions are optimal it will be months before you see the fruits of your labor. And though you can’t see […]...
  11. The Aha! Moment Everyone loves the ‘aha!’ moment. What was once obscure suddenly becomes crystal clear. The curtains part and it’s easy to see everything onstage. Eureka! The paradox is that while the ‘aha!’ moment seems to come out of nowhere, while it feels like a gift from the heavens, while it’s experienced as effortless, it’s actually the […]...
  12. Tragedy And Self-Actualization It’s a tragedy to be forced to suffer through a bad situation, through abuse, neglect, abandonment, loss. People become resentful, they wonder “Why me?” What they usually don’t realize is that there is a far greater tragedy than the specific set of circumstances they suffered through, and this is allowing themselves to become people they […]...
  13. Physical Deterioration and Self-Actualization One of the dichotomies of human existence in the realm of self-actualization is that your body remains subject to the laws of nature while your Self transcends these laws by deciding, on a moment by moment basis, upon the unique path that only you can walk to develop your unique potentialities. A friend of mine […]...
  14. Self-Actualization, Growth, Change, And Grief Self-actualization, growth, change, and grief don’t exist in vacuums. They are interdependent, each needs the other or is an outcome of the other. This is because each moment of becoming is a moment of change. And as we become who we really are we have to let go of who we were. A lot of […]...
  15. Self-Actualization Below The Surface To the casual observer, when a seed germinates nothing has changed, the topsoil looks just the same as it did a moment before. But of course everything has changed, the process of growth is now in motion and with a little time and a little luck the plant will poke its head up through the […]...
  16. Self Actualization I recently watched a documentary called ‘Reincarnation’ that followed Snoop Dogg, who now calls himself Snoop Lion, on a one month journey of self-discovery and growth in Jamaica. There he hoped to make a reggae album where the main content of his lyrics would be about positivity, growth, and rising above the struggle. In the […]...
  17. Watering Plants And Self-Actualization The leaves on the plant are all that are visible to you. If you weren’t familiar with how to take care of plants and were asked to water one you’d be forgiven for only paying attention to the leaves while completely neglecting the roots. In fact this is exactly what many people do the first […]...
  18. Self-Actualization And Sticking With One Interest If you have spread your time and attention amongst different hobbies, activities, and disciplines throughout your life and gotten pretty good in many of them but reached mastery level in none of them this article is for you. The real question is, what made you switch from one interest to the next before getting far […]...
  19. Self-Actualization and Human Relationships The paradox is that self-actualization, which is the process of unfolding unique potentialities within the individual, can only really happen in the context of human relationships. We’re social animals. We can’t thrive, most of us couldn’t even survive, without some sort of community around us. Even those pursuits that don’t appear to involve other people would […]...
  20. Self-Actualization Means Personal Responsibility As obvious as this may sound, if you are interested in self-actualization then it means you have to take personal responsibility for your own growth. You can’t expect other people to get the job done for you because it’s a project demanding insider information that only you have access to and behaviors that can only […]...
Related Items