Self-Actualization: Simplified

Self-actualization is realizing one's potential and desires via growth and self-awareness. It refers to the ultimate stage of human development, where a person is fully functioning, creative & happy.

Part 1: What the fuck?

If you look deeper into it, you’ll soon come to realize that, oppositely to the other layers, self-actualization is not just achieved, it is lived and embodied.

Unlike the other levels, it is an ongoing process that has to be maintained.

If you break down what self-actualization really means, you can sum it up in 6 important components:

• Inner Understanding & Acceptance

• External Understanding & Acceptance of Others

• Strong Ethics & Values

• A sense of Purpose

• Autonomy & Independence

• A Realistic Perception and Approach

As such, you can notice that Self-Actualization is an abstract concept that encompasses all the other layers of needs and requires constant maintenance.

No matter what aspect of the above-mentioned you chose to examine, you will realize that it cannot be a box to check but rather an ongoing process.

But that’s not bad news.

Quite the opposite.

It makes things easier. It just means that in order to achieve self-actualization, one must keep a balance of its 6 elements.

But that’s the trick.

Instead of building this balance from scratch, one good approach to it would be to reverse engineer self-actualization. If it is not a goal itself but rather tied to balancing other aspects, then it is more important to focus on what makes one self-actualized.

Reverse-engineering the process of self-actualization entails working backward from the intended goal (being self-actualized) to find the steps and activities that can lead to it.

So a new approach would be the following:

• Direction: This helps you develop a sense of purpose while contributing to improving your levels of autonomy.

• Internal Strength: This entails self-awareness and conviction in one’s values. This creates inner understanding & moral values that serve as guiding light.

• External Fluency: This aims at making your relationships and interactions more positive and meaningful, which helps in building and maintaining the other two aspects.

Imagine going to war without knowing what weapons you have at your disposal.

Imagine going to war without knowing who’s fighting by your side.

Imagine going to war without a plan.

By understanding this trinity and maintaining it, you can ensure that you set yourself on the right track to success.

Or as we called it “Self-actualization”.

As for anyone that wants to get on this journey:

Start with yourself. Strengthen the only thing you truly have: Yourself.

Once you figure that part out, only then should you plan ahead and set goals for yourself. A crystal clear vision of what you want to build, create or attain in life.

And as you start going towards the goals you’ve set, you will encounter obstacles.

And sometimes, inner strength alone will not be sufficient.

Hence the importance of being socially fluent and cooperative.

Acquiring a skillset of persuasion and cooperation will help you make allies that will ultimately have your back and allow you to get to your goals closer.

Part 2: How to Strengthen Your Mind

Self-actualization is one perfectly worded term.

In order to actualize and reach fulfillment, you must start by knowing and strengthening yourself.

This might sound abstract and that’s exactly what makes it a tough exercise. Not only that, but it is also an ongoing process that requires a lot of openness to change and willingness to grow.

The main problem with this crucial step is that it can be clouded or hindered by our own cognitive biases and mental traps.

And the safest way to do so is by putting distance between you and your thoughts. This allows you to take an objective stance, reduce biases and get closer to mental clarity. This is extremely important as it sets the tone for the rest of your approach.

You’ll hear here and there that self-awareness is key, but it’s worth pointing out that without competence, self-awareness can be detrimental.

As such, in order to grow as a person and most importantly strengthen your mind and find that inner Force, you must be ready to shatter your own wrong mental constructs.

If you noticed, it is always easier to give advice to other people rather than to yourself.

For that, you’ll have to extract yourself from your reflection and think in terms of imaginary versions of yourself.

So the process here is to build your self-awareness through two extreme examples:

• Your Worst Possible Version

• Your Best Possible Version

This can work as a benchmark for both behavior and thought processes.

The amazing thing is that by defining these imaginary versions of yourself, you will narrow down who you truly are as you will tend to be somewhere in the middle of both, a mix of both your ideal self and your worst version.

At a later stage, this works as a compass that shows you the desired direction and the repulsive version.

Those set the standard for your own core values.

You should take away which traits you despise and which ones you value. Through those results, you can build your own personal manifesto. It can be a set of bullet points or a full document.

You can use something similar to this template to do this.

All you’d need is to add desirable traits and circumstances in the white space (Your Ideal Self) and write the undesired ones outside of the circle, in the black space.

Once you’ve defined that, you have a core set of traits, values, behavior, and desired goals.

All of these can be used to reinforce your inner strength & sense of identity.

With solid foundations, you are more likely to handle whatever challenges are thrown at you.

And most importantly, you will have a clearer idea of who you are and where you want to get. This makes controlling your attention and behavior a lot easier, as there is a direction to get to.

This is basically the first step to unplugging from autopilot mode and actually taking charge of your life and the trajectory toward which you’re heading.

Of course, there are many approaches and templates you can use to get those ideas and results but I believe that this symbolic representation will allow you to visualize and understand what you value and what you don’t.

It allows you to imprint specific ideas in your mind.

Once you’ve drawn this template yourself and fill it, you will subconsciously remember it at all times.

Other people use meditation or go to therapy to get to these answers.

But I believe anyone can reach those conclusions as they are already part of you.

All you need to do is make sure to articulate them and make them more clear to better understand and grasp them.

The point is to put a distance between you and your thoughts.

This simple exercise goes a long way and helps you help yourself in reaching your full potential.

Armed with the knowledge of what you want and what you don’t, you can proceed to find the best way to channel those objectives and values toward reaching fulfillment and self-actualization.

Part 3: How to Find Your Direction

We like to overcomplicate things.

But let’s try to dumb things down for a second.

When people hear the words “Direction” or “Purpose”; they get intimidated.

But there is no reason for that.

And I want you to have a different approach to figuring it out.

An approach based on your personality and characteristics.

If you’ve completed the previous exercise, you have a small set of information about yourself that you can now use to define what you are meant to achieve and your raison-d’être.

For that, I’d like to introduce the concept of Ikigai, as it explains my point better.

The Japanese word ikigai means "life purpose" or "meaning in life." What you should be doing is the point where your interests, skills, the needs of the world, and the potential for the financial reward all meet. In theory, life's meaning and satisfaction may be attained through the harmonious interplay of these four factors.

You might already know it but I’d like you to give it a deep thought and actually write down your own input on it.

Because, I know how it goes:

“Oh yea this graph’s cool, it makes so much sense!”

keeps scrolling without giving it much thought

So this time, I’d like you to really take 10 minutes out of your day and fill it out with your own words.

Keep in mind that the answers you give now might not be definitive and are subject to change.

The goal here is simply to figure out starting points and how to make them converge towards each other.

Think about what it is that drives you and what you enjoy doing in your spare time. What do you do that makes you happy and fulfilled?

Think on what you're good at and what you know. In what ways do others frequently seek out your expertise because of your obvious proficiency?

Think about the needs of the worldwide context. In what ways do you hope to see the world improved, or what are some causes that are important to you?

First, figure out where you are monetarily, and then think about what occupations or career pathways might be a good fit for you in terms of your interests, talents, and the needs of the world.

Don't be frightened to try something new. Explore new experiences and push yourself well beyond your comfort zone to find out what makes you happy and gives your life meaning.

How to actually implement it?

I’m a big fan of reverse engineering. You probably know this if you’ve been reading me for a while.

I find it to be the easiest way to chart out long-term plans.

If you completed the Ikigai exercise, you should now have a few questions in mind:

“How do I get there?”

Well now at least you know where you want to get.

So the only thing left is to find out what milestones you need to reach in order to make that goal a reality.

By gradually going backward, you will reach the smaller steps that you can take today in order to start on your path to achieving your objectives.

It’s like drawing a staircase from top to bottom and then building it from bottom to top.

Use this template that I made for the White Pill Program:

If you’re wondering what solid foundation means:

It means all the repetitive and boring actions that need to be made on a repeated timeframe in order to attain your milestones.

If you like to learn a new skill and monetize it, you’ll have to start by researching information.

Once that is done, you’ll want to put it into practice (using your solid foundation; your newly learned knowledge)

Once that is done, you’ll want to sharpen your skills, set a higher bar (you’ll still need to research and learn, solid foundation is always there but you’re getting better).

And finally, once you’ve learned this new skill, you’ll have to learn how to sell it and find clients willing to pay you for it.

But all of this comes back down to repeating the process of learning and acquiring new information.

Although the milestones might change, but you can break the process down to Solid Foundations that will help you carry out the whole thing and build toward the next steps.

Each milestone can have its own separate pyramid where you break it down to simpler tasks and build your solid foundations for each of them.

This makes it easier to navigate your plans as you always know why you’re doing what you’re doing.

Trust me:

This type of clarity will improve your overall well-being.

No more guesswork, clear and intentional steps that lead you towards reaching Ikigai.

Remember: It’s always about balance.

Disclaimer: I did not say it would be easy. You will still face obstacles, challenges, and adversity.

But that’s good! According to the Strength Theory, that should help you push your own limits.

After all, diamonds are made under pressure.

But of course, as we said before, you will still need to learn how to navigate social situations, make allies and create synergy effects so that you can help each other instead of sabotaging each other.

Social Fluency is a crucial skill.

Because the People side is something many might oversee or neglect.

Even if you figured out who you are, what you stand for, and where you are going; you will still need to deal with people. You better know how to make them help you.

Part 4: How to Improve Social Fluency

No man is an island.

You’ve heard this before. And I cannot think of a better way to put it.

But for you to get more fluent socially, build a network, and meaningful relationships, make allies, and open doors of opportunity for yourself, you need to understand 3 concepts:

• The Need for Healthy and Clear Boundaries

• Power Dynamics and what they entail

• The Rules of Social Exchange

1- The Need for Healthy Boundaries:

This is a well-known fact: Good fences make good neighbors.

If you’re someone looking to make more friends in a new environment or approach new people (no matter your intent), you might fall for the trap of letting your guard down.

What this does is put you in a position where you do not build positive relationships that serve you.

We tend to be overly nice and tolerant of new people.

That sets your standards low and signals that your boundaries can be crossed.

This is why it’s essential to define what you tolerate and what you don’t, beforehand.

Understanding your own boundaries and defining them, will help you express them and let them be understood.

One sure way to do this is by working on your assertiveness skills.

You can get the free Social Skills Playbook where I explain it in detail.

The need for boundaries is essential in protecting your own personal power and ability to make choices for yourself, independent from the influence of others.

In order to do that the right way.

You need to understand and acknowledge the concept of Power and the underlying dynamics behind it.

2- Power & What it Entails

Fact slap: Everything is a power game.

If you’re willing to dig past some preconceived idea that Power is a bad thing, keep reading.

In order to understand this, one must first understand what Power Dynamics are.

Power dynamics define the nature of a relationship.

Power dynamics define which side is the dominant side and which is the submissive side.

Now before we get deeper into this topic:

What is Power?

It is the weight of negotiation and the extent to which one can influence those around them.

Your level of power defines your level of influence.

The lower your power, the more you will be influenced.

What we want to look at is how power can be ACQUIRED & MAINTAINED.

Power is acquired in one of those ways: Respect or Fear.

The latter is about Manipulation. That’s not what we want.

The former is about social skills and genuinely being a respectable person. That’s what we want.

In order to acquire respect-based power, you have 2 ways to go about it.

1- Competence-based: Being so good at what you do that those people can’t question your authority.

2- Power moves: which I’m about to explain.

There are 3 types of power moves:

• Empowering: grants you more power

• Weakening: takes away power

• Neutral: Maintains the current power balance

Now what you need to understand is that power moves compound over time.

The sum of the interactions you have with someone and the nature of the power moves involved are what defines the power dynamics in place.

Power dynamics are built and maintained.

As such, even if someone empowers you and puts you on a pedestal if you don’t take care of maintaining the power dynamics, the balance will get thrown and you might lose your status in the relationship.

Putting this into practice:

Different power moves require different reactions.

Power games are omnipresent, which makes it a necessity to understand it better.

Doing this will give you the ability to identify power dynamics and the nature of power moves.

Once you understand the dynamics, you can evaluate what each person is trying to do.

Are they empowering me? Are they disempowering me?

Do they see me as an equal? Do they want to have power over me?

This is not being paranoid.

This is being socially aware.

Know where you stand, and know what positions you get yourself into.

3- The Rule of Social Exchange:

What do you bring to the table?

Why would people hang out with you and help you out?

As much as this sounds like a utilitarian approach, it is nonetheless a reality of human nature.

You cannot abuse people’s kindness.

Just like you have your boundaries, other people have theirs.

So if you want to build a strong network and healthy relationships, you must acknowledge that you cannot only be a taker.

You also need to be a giver.

In order to take, you must first give.

The idea is creating a synergy effect with the people around you.

A positive sum game where everyone benefits from you while you benefit back from them.

Everyone wins.

Not in a transactional way, but rather in a benevolent manner, in an attempt to help each other grow.

Of course, during the course of your journey, you will meet poorly intentioned people.

That’s why I believe that learning anti-manipulation is a must.

You can check out this substack post to get started.

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