Achieving Self-Actualization Through Self-Responsibility

If you have seen the Self-Actualization Quadrants and the Flow Zone, then you know that it is in the fourth quadrant that we begin moving toward full optimization of our highest meanings and robust performances. Quadrant 1 is where we all begin and so reflects the lack of development of either meaning or performance. Quadrant 2 gauges the development of skill as competency grows and so refers to performance. Quadrant 3 gauges the development of meaning, vision, passion, inspiration, great ideas, etc. and so refers to meaning.

But meaning without performance is just dreaming. And performance without rich meanings is just empty and compulsive behavior. So it is in the synthesis of meaning-and-performance that we actualize our best meanings and embody our best performances with the most robust meanings. All of this describes how it is with the challenges of our meanings and the development of our competencies synthesizes that we are propelled into peak experiences and peak performances.

All in all, this describes the process of self-actualizing. And with this, we are in the “zone” of being at our best and fully engaged with whatever activity we’re involved with. The same axes that create the flow zone creates the self-actualization quadrants. In Neuro-Semantics we identify them as Meaning and Performance whereas Csikszentmihayli identified them as Challenge and Competency.

• — How do these relate?
• — How do they describe provide different perspectives on the same experience?
• — And how do these relate to self-responsibility?

Activities or experiences that we give meaning to, and that become highly meaningful to us, are those that also challenge us to grow, that push us past our current competency level, and that stretch us to what we perceive to be higher levels of our potential. We need that kind of challenge. Without challenge, we get bored. Life becomes stale. We become disinterested, reduce our level of awareness, and don’t extend ourselves. For an activity to be meaningful, it has to challenge us at an appropriate level.

The performances that we engage in depend upon skills and competencies and as we keep using our skills, they become refined, honed, and more fully developed. This enables us to then take on more challenge since it is in the actual performance that we actualize the meanings in our body and via our competencies.

On the Meaning axis, if we go for too big of a meaning, too much of a challenge, we get overwhelmed. And with overwhelm, we go into the Panic or the Overwhelm Zone. The result? We shut down. We dream, but don’t do. We create in our mind, but not in our lives. On the Performance axis, if we expend too much skill for something, we feel it overkill and so feel bored, unchallenged. And with under-whelm, we enter the Drone or the Bored Zone. In both instances, too much or too little challenge we fail to optimize our best. And so we exit the flow state of the Self-Actualizing Zone.

It is in the proper combination that allows us to synthesize meaning and performance, challenge and competency and optimize both into the self-actualizing experience. So given all of that, does this relate to self-responsibility? If it does, how does it?

To think about these two axes, the self-actualization axes, the Neuro-Semantic axes, and the flow axes, we only need to think of them in terms of self-responsibility, we only need to rename them Responsibility and Capability. When we do this, we can see that the higher the level of responsibility which we assume and own moves us upward into more meaning and challenge. That’s the vertical axis. Similarly, the more capability we demonstrate over time as we grow and develop, the more we move along on that axis in terms of competency and performance. And that’s the horizontal axis.

In other words, the level of responsibility assumed describes the meaningful vision, goals, hopes, dreams, etc. that we accept and hold ourselves to. Taking on too much, all at once, creates overwhelm. Taking on too little and there’s no development, no stretch, no growth. As we give ourselves time (which necessitates the states of patience, persistence, commitment, resilience, etc.) to keep developing our performance / competency as the capacity is developed, we keep fulfilling one level of responsibility. That prepares us for the next. If we go too slow, we get bored and quit; if we push too fast with too much impatience and not enough persistence, we get overwhelmed and defeated.

In all of this, self-responsibility is the meta-state that enables us to keep using the right amount of pull and push as we set stretch goals, keep holding ourselves accountable and inviting others to hold us accountable, keep synthesizing our dreams, meanings, and responsibilities with the development of our performances.

So, does self-actualization depend on self-responsibility? You bet it does! It depends on lots and lots and lots of self-responsibility. That’s why only the self-responsible are able to self- actualize. Those who depend on others, or luck, or circumstance and those who wait for the right time, the right circumstances, the right motivation, etc. never get around to it. To self- actualize, we have to keep finding our current capability level and assume responsibility to stretch that level just a little bit beyond it and to keep exerting that kind of effort day in, day out.

Putting this altogether, the very axis of meaning (which includes challenge) entails responsibility. And the axis of performance (which includes competency) entails capability and these are the two components of self-responsibility. And because we are responsible for our capabilities, accepting and owning that facilitates the process of actualizing our highest and best.