What is Self-Realization:
Self-realization is the satisfaction of having achieved and fulfilled one or more personal goals that are part of development and human potential.
Through self-realization Individuals expose their abilities, skills or talents to the maximum in order to be and do what they want.. That is, it refers to the achievement of a personal objective through which happiness can be contemplated.
The desire for self-realization is motivated by the individual search that directs us to meet a series of expectations and provide answers to doubts or questions that mark a certain existential moment.
Happiness is the ultimate achievement of self-realization, is contemplative and is obtained when people understand that it is through facts and actions that desires and projects are fulfilled. It is part of the freedom to be and do what you want.
Self-actualization needs
Self-realization is dependent on and present in all areas of human development.That is, family, personal relationships, studies, work, social relationships, love, projects, ventures, among others.
Therefore, the time invested, the effort and the work done to fulfill the vocation that each person has is very important and valuable. For example, musicians feel self-actualized when they sing, play an instrument, or compose songs.
However, it may happen that a person feels self-actualized in one area of their life but not in another. For example, you managed to be a professional musician and have a distinguished artistic career but, in terms of love as a couple, you have not yet found the right person and you feel an emotional or sentimental imbalance.
Self-realization brings happiness in itself and establishes the emotional balance that is so necessary and important in each person.
If you are not clear about what to do and how to achieve your goals, then you can ask yourself the following questions: What does happiness mean to me? What can I do to achieve it? Am I willing to fight and work for it? What am I capable of doing for my self-realization?
Hence, one of the greatest satisfactions of old age is taking stock of the goals achieved and recognizing the effort and time dedicated to achieving, in a coherent manner, being what was desired.
See also Happiness.
Self-actualization and Maslow’s Pyramid
Abraham Maslow was an American psychologist and one of the leading exponents of humanistic psychology. Maslow proposed in his work A theory of human motivationin 1943, the hierarchy of human needs, among which the development of the famous Maslow pyramid and the analysis of human behavior stand out.
According to Maslow, self-actualization is the maximum achievement of the satisfaction of human needs. It is the development of human potential, self-acceptance, strengthening spirituality, knowledge, good interpersonal relationships and living under the concept of happiness.
Maslow describes in his pyramid five levels of human needs that must be fulfilled until self-realization is achieved, ranging from the most basic to the most complex. Only the higher needs should be attended to once the simpler needs have been resolved.
Basic needs: They are the basic physiological needs such as breathing, eating, sleeping, avoiding pain, among others.
Safety and security needs: security and physical and health integrity, having economic resources, housing, among others.
Social needs: It is composed of the feeling of affiliation, family, friends, work, social acceptance.
Esteem Needs: These are needs for recognition and esteem. It refers to respect for ourselves and those around us.
Self realisation: indicates the need to “be” and the personal motivation for growth. For Maslow, self-realization is the highest need of the human being, through which people’s most outstanding potentials are developed.
For Maslow, self-actualized individuals stand out for being more focused on the reality that surrounds them, they face adversities starting from a solution and have a different perception of meanings and their purposes.
On the other hand, Aristotle also mentioned self-realization, describing it as the main goal of man in search of his individual happiness, hence what makes one being happy and another varies.
See also