✨Self-Actualization = the realization or fulfillment of one’s talents and potentialities, especially considered as a drive or need present in everyone.
➡️Where are you in your self-actualization journey?
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➡️You may have heard of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. At the bottom of the hierarchy are basic needs like food, water, and shelter. Above that are safety, relationships, esteem, and then self-actualization.
➡️The theory is that once our basic needs are met, we need security and stability, belonging and love, and respect for self and others before we can realize our full potential.
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I’ve been thinking about self-actualization a lot lately and wanted to share a few of my thoughts.
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⭐️First, I recognize that it is a privilege to be able to strive for self-actualization. Many individuals, for reasons that are largely out of their control, struggle for basic needs, for safety, and relationships. Therefore, I do not take for granted my opportunity to strive for self-actualization and am grateful for it.
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⭐️I have identified four critical aspects of the esteem level (the level before self-actualization) that I have spent much of my adult life working on: self-awareness, self-respect, self-love, and self-compassion.
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☀️Self-awareness = how well we know our self. Our awareness of our thoughts, words, and actions and WHY we think, speak, and act the way we do.
🙏Self-respect = deep admiration for ourself and our abilities, qualities, and achievements.
❤️Self-love = an unconditional love for ourself. An acceptance of the deepest parts of ourself.
🌸Self-compassion = exercising warmth, kindness, and understanding in responding to ourself during difficult or painful situations.
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⭐️I truly believe that we need to reach self-awareness, self-respect, self-love, and self-compassion before we can actualize our full potential.
⭐️Work worth doing, not out of selfish ambition, but to bring our full self to the world and be of greatest service to others.
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❤️I wish you all well on your journey to self-actualization, and your practice of self-awareness, self-respect, self-love, and self-compassion!
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