EVERYDAY SELF-ACTUALIZATION AND THE POWER OF CHOICE

According to Abraham Maslow the first benchmark for living the self-actualizing life is a total absorption into a being-valued significance— the personal “genius” state of flow. That was the theme of last week’s Neuron post. Here is the second one and it is about the power of choice.

2) Choosing Growth The second behavior that benchmarks self-actualization according to Maslow is “choosing the growth choice.”

“Let us think of life as a process of choices, one after another. At each point there is a progression choice and a regression choice. There may be a movement toward defense, toward safety, toward being afraid; but on the other side, there is the growth choice. To make the growth choice instead of the fear choice a dozen times a day is to move a dozen times a day toward self- actualization. Self-actualization is an ongoing process; it means making each of the many single choices about wether to lie or to be honest, wether to steal or not to steal, and it means to make each of these choices as a growth choice. This is movement toward self-actualization.” (44 italics added)

If you read the literature of Maslow about self-actualization, you will find that very frequently he called it “growth.” Self-actualizing is growing to be fully and completely everything that you can be, growing to be your best self. At times he even called this new psychology, Growth Psychology, and even created a second model, a Growth Model. And in this model he noted that inner personal growth is not inevitable— we have to choose it. You do not have to grow up and mature! You can resist it or just not develop it. To experience it requires a choice. “Choosing” to step forward, to step up, to make a choice for growth is one of the behaviors of self- actualization.

Now choice involves a meta-state. It involves meta-stating yourself first by stepping back or stepping up to a place above and beyond an experience so that you move to a choice point. Now you can see alternatives or options. From here you can make an informed decision of the pros and cons of the choice, quality control your frames about choosing, taking a risk, moving forward, etc. And what will you choose?

As you can tell from the quotation above choosing is a step of responsibility and taking, owning, and exercising responsibility is choosing to grow. These are equivalent. And choosing is not always the easy thing to do, or comfortable thing. Sometimes it is uncomfortable, and

challenging, and even hard. Yet when you resist the seduction of the status quo and stretch forward to the next step— you are taking a step of self-actualizing.

3) Choosing Your Way “Self-Actualization implies that there is a self to be actualized. A human being is not a tabula rasa, not a lump of clay. He is something which is already there. ... A human being is his temperament, his biochemical balances, and so on. There is a self, and what I have sometimes referred to as ‘listening to the impulse voices’ means letting the self emerge. As a simple first step toward self-actualization, I sometimes suggest to my students that when they are given a glass of wine and asked how they like it, they try a different way of responding. First, I suggest that they not look at the label on the bottle. They will not use it to get any cue about whether or not the should like it. Next, I recommend that they close their eyes if possible and that they ‘make a hush.’ Now they are ready to look within themselves and try to shout out the noise of the world so that they may savor the wine on their tongues and look to the ‘Supreme Court’ inside themselves. Then, and only then, they may come out and say, ‘I like it’ or ‘I don’t’ like it.’” (45)

Self-actualization also involves discovering your inner self and taking the courage to let that highest self emerge. How does this occur? In part, you do this by learning to listen to your own inner voice. And to do that you probably have to stop listening to all of the other voices around you— the voice of family, culture, tradition, authority, media, etc. Ask, “What do I think and feel?” This describes the growth from positing authority and evaluation externally and bringing it inside and owning it for ourselves. Discovering your own true likes and dislikes.

This is not easy. Maslow recommends learning how to slow down and create an inner silence— “to make a hush.” The shoulds can so easily get in the way. “I should do this,” “I should do that.” Operating from the shoulds is one thing; operating from what truly fits for you is an entirely other thing. Slow down, become silent, and check with your own inner Supreme Court.

“A person who does each of these little things each time the choice point comes will find that they add up to better choices about what is constitutionally right for him. He comes to know what his destiny is, who his wife or husband will be, what his mission in life will be. Once cannot choose wisely for a life unless he dares listen to himself, his own self, at each moment in life, and to say calmly, “No, I don’t like such and such.” (45-46)

We describe this as the meta-program of “internally referencing and having an external check” in NLP. Yet none of us are born with this program. This is one of those programs that we have to develop. We are all born “externally referenced” because, without instincts, we do not know anything, much less what we want or need. So childhood for the majority is lived always looking outside oneself to find out what is good, what is bad, what to do, what not to do, etc. Actualizing your highest and best self means bringing that outside authority inside. It means being responsible for yourself and for your choices. It means grow up and become the “author” of your own life as you determine your beliefs, values, ethics, way to live, etc.

Ah, choice— using our executive level of mind to say yes to values and no to dis-values. The process of self-actualizing requires the exercising of this human power.