How to achieve self actualization starts with defining what self actualization means to you, first and foremost. There’s many good goals such as being a good husband, wife, CEO, or entrepreneur. What matters most is how the success means to you.
For me, personally, self actualization means becoming a millionaire. I never thought, in a million years, would I have the power to become a millionaire. All I have is a dream and hope of becoming a millionaire. The dream that I set out to do something and I had the power to achieve it.
How to achieve self actualizations means knowing what self actualization means to you. There’s an infinite number of biggest goals in life to achieve. Self actualization goal should be a long term play. There’s many people who try their entire lives for self actualization and never get it.
If it takes a year or two to get there, it’s not a long term goal. Self actualization goals should take a decade, at a minimum, to achieve. How to achieve self actualization is more than possible as long as you put in the work. There’s many people who just wonder around the world aimlessly.
That shouldn’t be the case. You want to live a life full of purpose, meaning, and intent. If you don’t have the blueprint and the map to go up, you’ll get lost along the way and the journey. No one ever hands you self actualization thinking they need to give you a chance.
You have to make someone of your life yourself. It’s a hard journey but a rewarding one.
Self Actualization: How to Achieve It
Below are the 9 ways on how to achieve self actualization. I’m using these steps myself and can attest they work.
1) Define What Self Actualization is to You
For me, personally, self actualization means how far I can take my net worth. I want to be a millionaire but that’s just a beginning goal for me. I love the world of business and money is a way to keep score in business. There’s nothing wrong with working for more money.
How to achieve self actualization means defining what it means to you. The most important thing to do is to write it down. You can’t just wing this because this is the most important thing you’ll ever do in your life. It’s why you were born and why you were created in the first place.
It’s your life’s meaning and purpose. You don’t want to wander around life aimlessly and hope you end up at your destination. You need to meticulously and purposefully take steps to move up in life. GPS is a valuable tool and resource you use to get to your destination.
it’s no different when it comes to achieving your goals.
2) Self Actualization: How to Achieve it? Put in the Work
How to achieve self actualization means putting in the work. I get it. It’s ridiculously difficult to put in the work because it’s the toughest goal you will work towards. No one ever got to the top because they didn’t put in the hours and the effort.
The great news about compound effort is that you need to put in less effort overall each passing year. However, that doesn’t mean you can get away from putting in the effort in the first place. I work weekends on my side hustle and work nights if need be.
Although I personally do not like the hustle culture, sometimes, we do what we have to in the short term to win in the long term. The long term is what matters. If one unit of input pays off with 10 units of output 10 – 20 years time, then it’s more than worth it.
No one ever rose to the top of their field without effort.
3) Set a Timeline to Success Guideline
The timeline of success states that it takes at least 10 years for mastery to happen. The 10000 hour rule is real. I personally need 10,000 hours to achieve mastery in anything meaningful I want to achieve. It took five years before I really got comfortable at Corporate America.
These days now, I know how to negotiate and get more money. I know how to manage my bosses, coworkers, and the situation around me to move up in life. Many 15 recruiters hit me up in 2022. In my younger days, I would entertain and see what they have to offer.
These days, I flat out ask for the salary upfront. If they refuse to tell me, then I just reject them. There’s no point in wasting my time for a company who’ll replace me in a second when they get a chance. How to achieve self actualization requires you putting in the time.
No one ever got to the top in a matter of days. A realistic timeline to achieve self actualization allows you to reflect frequently throughout the journey..
4) Study the Ones Who Already Achieved Self Actualization
You don’t have to figure everything out yourself. How to achieve self actualization means paying attention to the ones who are at the top. Seeing how they got to success and see if you can replicate what they did. Some people, you will not replicate what they’ve accomplished.
I can never do what Novak Djokovic did because I don’t have the near level of biological athleticism as Novak Djokovic. However, he’s just one example. There are many other examples I can learn from and get inspiration from. The person I look up to the most is Mark Cuban.
Even though I know I’ll never replicate his successes, I still gain inspiration from him. There are an infinite number of role models to choose from. it could be your parents, your bosses, your employer’s executives, and many more.
There’s no need to figure everything out yourself. There’s nothing wrong with learning from the ones who already got to the top.
5) Let Time Pass: Be Patient
Many people want results and they want it now. That’s not how the world works. No one ever hands you what you want quickly. When you want a job, it takes months and months of interviewing and negotiating before they finally give you a job.
I don’t like this part of the process, which is why I’m building my net worth to the highest point imaginable. So I can step away from the game altogether. How to achieve self actualization requires patience because it’s what gets you ahead.
I don’t know anyone who became millionaires in just a couple of weeks. The ones who got there because of a lucky GME options call lost it all eventually. Patience is a requirement to success. It happens even slower than you think it is does because there’s such a thing as taking a step backward.
The bear market of 2022 taught everyone what exactly that means and how much it can set you back. Only the patient ones will come out ahead in a decade’s worth of time.
6) First and Foremost, Take Care of Your Health
You can’t enjoy yourself if you don’t feel good. Health is wealth for a reason. Even if I get a $10k bonus, I still don’t feel great if I don’t get good enough health. How to achieve self actualization requires you to take care of your health, both mental and physical health.
I worked out 5x a week for seven months straight in 2022. These days, I’m so used to working out that it makes me feel bad if I don’t work out. I genuinely enjoy and love taking care of my health because it’s what I use in my self actualization journey.
You don’t have to do high intensity training. It can be simple as taking a 30 minute stroll outside or swimming in the community pool. Whatever it is, raise your heart rate so your resting heart rate is lower in normal conditions.
Your body should be doing the least amount of work to keep you alive. You can easily get there with exercise. Exercise will change your life.
7) Focus on Your Strengths
There’s no point in becoming a “well rounded” person. A “well rounded” person isn’t dangerous. They’re OK at a bunch of stuff but never a killer at one thing. There’s a reason Apple doesn’t sell confectionary products. They would be the worst at it.
Warren Buffett is great at capital allocation but he is awful at business on an operational level. How to achieve self actualization means figuring out what you’re good at and figuring out how to be great at it. The person who practices 1 kick 10k times is more dangerous than 10k kicks practiced one time.
Colleges want to see “well rounded” students but that’s a bunch of malarkey. Figure out what you are amazing at in providing a service to someone else. Then amplify that skill 10x. When you do it 10x better than any of your competition, customers have no choice but to select you.
You can’t focus on 10 self actualizations throughout your lifetime. You have to focus on 1. The United States won world war 2 by focusing their army on one central location. Normandy. It’s time to focus on what you do have instead of what you don’t.
8) Self Actualization: How to Achieve it? Compound Your Effort
No one ever hands self actualization to you on a silver platter. How to achieve self actualization means putting in the effort. Showing up is half the battle. The effort you put in every day pays off in the future months in spades. You learn how to be more efficient with each passing day.
How to achieve self actualization means putting in the effort every day. Show up. Put in the work. One day, everything works out and realize what all that hard work was for in the first place. Hard work pays off. I’m putting in so many hours into my blog over the weekend.
People say I put in too many hours and effort onto my blog. That’s OK. I don’t get bothered. I just keep doing my thing because blogging is a huge passion of mine. During the grinding years of your life, you will question why you’re putting in so much effort in the first place.
Whether you’re sacrificing too much in exchange for what you get in return. When you power through this part of the journey, you win in the end.
9) Surround Yourself With Friends Who Motivate You
You are the average of the 5 people you associate yourself the most with. When you surround yourself with 4 poor friends, you’ll be the 5th one. When you surround yourself with 4 rockstar bloggers, you become the 5th one. It’s what they talk about that’ll be different than your social friends.
How to achieve self actualization means surrounding yourself with friends who motivate you to become your best self. Who you associate yourself with makes up your identity eventually. Social influence and peer pressure influences us on a subconscious and conscious level.
The ones in my friend circle are small but I selectively chose them because they wouldn’t be a drag on myself down the road. I am loyal to my friends because I know who they are as a person. You don’t want to surround yourself with people who drag your goals down.
You want to surround yourself with people who elevate you to the next level. It’s how your friends influence each other that matters the most.
Self Actualization: How to Achieve it? Believing it is Possible
There are even people out there who don’t believe self actualization is possible in the first place! What! That is ludicrous. You deserve self actualization as much as the next person. You deserve to be rich, powerful, wealthy, healthy, with a beautiful family to come home to.
How to achieve self actualization first starts with believing it’s possible in the first place and that you’re worthy of doing so in the first place. You can’t beat the person who refuses to give up and shows up every single day to achieve their goals, hopes, and dreams.
Even if it takes more time than someone else, as long as you’re following your own path, you are on the right path. Slow progress is still progress. After six years into the journey, I can attest that the path is a grueling path. It takes way too long.
However, I’m still never giving up and I’m giving it everything I’ve got until I have nothing left to give. Even though I’m nowhere near achieving self actualization, I never lost faith and belief that I’ll get there. One of these days, it’s going to happen and I’m going to say just how worth it it was.
How to achieve self actualization is possible for everyone. We can’t let our self limiting beliefs hold us back. It’s one thing if someone else holds us back but it’s another if we hold ourselves back. Life is hard enough already. We can’t make it harder for ourselves.
Our lives and goals are too valuable for that level of nonsense.
Self Actualization: How to Achieve it Shortlist
- Define what self actualization is to you
- Self actualization: how to achieve it? Put in the work
- Set a timeline to success guide
- Study the ones who already achieved self actualization
- Let time pass: be patient
- First and foremost, take care of your health
- Focus on your strengths
- Self actualization: How to achieve it? Compound your effort
- Surround yourself with friends who motivate you
