Self Actualisation — how to find fulfilment from the place we forget to look

We all feel a tug towards some greater purpose, a feeling that we are able to achieve something in touch with our true talents and of greater benefit to others. If we’re “lucky” we may get to do a job that fulfils this purpose. But who even has time to work towards that?

In fact, we don’t even have the time in an increasingly busy and scheduled work-life juggling act to actually define what that purpose is, let alone work towards it. To the busy, working person trying to pay bills, or plan the next getaway, these ponderings are reserved for drifters, dreamers and creatives.

Let’s ground these concepts in the real world and explore what you can do to make an actual difference to both your success and fulfilment with minimal effort!

First let’s take a step back, what is self-actualisation?

Maslow defined self-actualisation as the desire to become more and more what one is, to become everything that one is capable of becoming.

So essentially it’s taking your natural talents and abilities and using them to their potential, developing and strengthening those skills. It’s bringing out the best in oneself.

If it was possible for all of us to do this we would be living in a pretty interesting world.

To properly frame this discussion, let’s consider what is the labour market, and in which ways does it reward/stifle self-actualisation? The labour market, in theory, should incentivise individuals to optimise their utility in society. It’s a kind of distributed computation. Central planning — matching skills and interests of individuals to roles in the job market/business environment is an extraordinarily complicated problem. It’s basically a very difficult set of calculus problems. You have the dynamic and ever-changing business landscape on one side, and the skills of the individual on the other. Each individual is tasked with solving this problem for themselves, and the efficiency with which they solve it determines, in large part their reward (salary).

Ok, so how does this relate?

Well, your status in society appears superficially to follow a linear progression, you gather qualifications, then you begin to gather work experience and skills. These factors determine your salary along the way. This gives the impression that your role in society is not so much an optimisation, but one of tenure and accumulation of items for your CV. You are asked to refine your likes and dislikes in line with subjects throughout school, then at a very young age, choose a degree.

What if you change your mind and decide the particular ladder you are climbing isn’t taking you to a place that fulfils you, and you don’t like the view? There is a high price to pay for changing your mind.

So what goes wrong? What makes so many people think that the path to being rich is one which is in opposition to their nature and their passions?

The path to self-actualisation is so vague precisely because so is life, asking “what do I truly want to do with my life” is like asking “what is the meaning of life”. There is no specific meaning to life, you get to define its meaning. But we are living in a culture that values conformity and materialism while idolising the “grafter” and the “self-made millionaire”.

A person who doesn’t find their own sense of purpose and meaning before the time which they are asked to choose a degree and start climbing a ladder will gravitate towards one which superficially fits with their skillset and best allows them to gain status according to that culture. This is a recipe for an epidemic of unfulfilled people, not to mention that it is not the best way to solve the optimisation puzzle!

Because one day you’re young and poor, and the next you’re old and rich, but you wish you were young and poor again, so you give the advice to young people that you wish you followed yourself: “it’s not about money, do something you enjoy”. But when you’re young and poor, you just want to be young and rich, so you do something you don’t enjoy, thinking you’ll change up one day and do something you do enjoy, once you get rich of course.

Then one day suddenly you realise you’ve been making excuses, you’re not happy, maybe you’re rich but you’ve got a family, house and car. You can’t switch up, that’s a risk, what would people think. Then you get old and wise and you realise, if you did something you loved, you would have done it with passion and dedication, you would have been happier along the way, and this probably would have made you rich, those qualities are rare and highly valued. So you give that advice to young people, but they’re not wise and they just want to be young and rich.

Follow what feels good

What feels good when you are actually doing it, not when you are done, not when you get praise or some form of recognition for it. What activity do you enjoy doing, and feel a sense of timelessness, focus and flow while doing it? If there is nothing that comes to mind, you need to go out and try different things, to live without sampling the many flavours of life is not to have lived! Once you find this, you need to spend as much time as possible practising and enjoying it.

I would like to remind you that the most amazing success often comes from the least of efforts. This is contrary to what we are taught. If you get rich doing something which you love, I’m sure you too would emphasise how hard you grafted and how many times you failed. Because you want to be an inspiration, and after all, our culture prizes the grafter — the success who spent years failing, toiling away doing what they loved. It's better than saying “I enjoyed doing this so I carried on doing it and success just came my way”. There is nothing the culture hates more than someone who merely got lucky! This has become somewhat of the norm, and I would bet that people who succeed feel the pressure to reinforce it.

This has unintended consequences, however. For people who are not working towards some inspired and life-long goal, which they dreamed of ever since a young age, it can feel like you missed the boat — better to work in a stable job doing something you don’t enjoy because you never found something which you could graft towards.

Once you are following this feeling, you are self-actualising. The hidden power of this is that, when you are following that feeling, everything else falls into place.

You will naturally find a way to monetise this passion, get others involved and spend more time doing it. This is what they don’t teach you in school — you will excel things you enjoy doing, so regardless of what that thing is, this is the best way solve the optimisation puzzle. Although roaring success may not come at first, you are going to gain more, both in terms of fulfilment and monetary success, over the mid-term, when you are practicing something you enjoy. It’s that simple. All it requires is courage.