What is self-actualization?

Self-actualization is a term that is first coined by Kurt Goldstein. It can be defined as the attribute by which individuals can leverage their own abilities in order to reach their potential. It is however, a personal procedure and can vary greatly from one person to another person. Researchers are of the opinion that self actualization can be considered as one of the aspect by which an individual has full realization of one’s own creative, intellectual and even social potential (Kagitcibasi 2017). During my residential trip, I was blessed to go through a number of different interesting activities that had helped me to venture different aspects of my characters and my will power with which I was not accustomed primarily. The experiences that I gained had helped me not only overcome the fears that I had concealed within me but also made me extrovert and more confident. By linking my experiences with the self-actualization theories, I had been able to modify myself towards betterment and had developed knowledge and skills that would help me in my future prospects as well. 

One of the tasks that I had to perform during my residential trip was quite challenging for me. I along with my friends was allocated in a team of six members. We had very good bonding among the team members and we were excited in participating in the completion as a team. From the starting of our university sessions, we had been together and helped each other in our difficulties in lives. Therefore, we shared a strong emotional and mental bond and cared for each other. Therefore, when the opportunity of playing games as a team arrived, we could not miss it. Our strong social interaction, trust on each other, emotional connections among us and caring for the others helped us to remain united in all times.  One of the most important positive attribute of our team was that we always encouraged each other to overcome our barriers and negative aspects and thereby help each other to develop ourselves. In the competition, we had to participate in a game where we had to climb up a pole that is about 24 feet in height and then jump from the pole to touch a ball hanging equally at a distance of approximately two meters. Just listening to the criteria of the game gave me a shock, as I got quite nervous hearing this. My friends were also aware that I have fear of heights and thereby avoid any activity that needs to deal with heights. I started thinking that I could never make my team win this competition, as I would never be able to complete the task successfully. My friends were a great support as they continuously encouraged me to overcome my fear and helped me to release my nervousness and fear by cracking jokes and making me feel life and tension free. Although, I was interacting and responding to their jokes, I was undergoing through severe stress of about not only my own failure but also making the team lose due to my phobia of heights. Ultimately, the situation arrived. My team members had already successfully done the task and this had in turn increased the pressures on me. This is mainly because I alone was left and depending upon my performance, the final winner team will be declared. Therefore, it was a very strenuous situation with me as I was fighting with my own self. However, I succeeded in completing my task successfully.

My experience with self-actualization

On one side, there was my team who expects me to help them win and on the other side, there was my own fear that I was not able to overcome anyhow. In my early childhood, I saw one of my cousins who fell down from a window of a two storey building that led to his death. That tragedy had created fear of height in me from that time. With the start of time, I took a deep breath and initiated the task. The only one thing that was ringing in my ears was the hope and expectation of my team members. I climbed up the pole quite swiftly within very few seconds in comparison to the others that gave me an extra confidence for my next leap. However while I was on the top of the pole, my limbs started shivering and I could not initiate the jump. Moreover, when I just had the glance of the height, I became quite nervous and my feet got cold. I felt that my feet had become heavy and I could not move them. In such a situation when I was not able to hear, visualize or think anything due to this emergency. Suddenly, among all these feelings, the motivations and encouraging shouts of my team members broke through it and I became motivated to overcome my fears and stress. For the sake of my team, I took a deep breath and jumped from the pole within the stipulated time just at the right nick of time. This helped me to bring victory in the team and my friends started calling me “Champion”. 

From the entire incident, I was able to develop a large number of insights that associated with the self-actualization and self-development theories put forward by different eminent researchers over time. I can relate my situation with Carl Roger’s theory (1959) where he has said that humans have one basic motive that is the tendency of self-actualization. By achieving self-actualization, individuals can fulfil their own potential and thereby can successfully achieve the highest level of success of “human-beingness”.  This mainly involves attaining self-actualization that can take place when individual’s ideal-self meaning (who they would like to be) becomes congruent with the behaviors that they possess in reality (like their self-image). Carl Rogers believes that individual who actualizes can become a “fully functioning” person (Vohs and Baumiester 2016). I have gone through the theories of self-actualization of the author in details. I have identified five important stages that are required for being a “fully functional person”. One of them is “Open to experience” where individuals need to accept both positive and negative emotions. Individuals do not deny their negative feelings but rather work through them to overcome them (Greene 2017). I therefore could relate myself with this situation and I was quite pleased that I was able to initiate being a “fully functional person”. Another important stage in Roger’s theory is called “trust feeling”.  Researchers are of the opinion that individuals who pay attentions to feelings, instinct and gut reactions can trust on their own decisions as the right ones. They, therefore, trust upon themselves in making the right choice (Schore, 2015).

Relating my experience to Carl Rogers’s theory

I have also seen that in that particular situation, I trusted my instincts and felt that I could overcome my fear and gain success that made me famous among my friends. Therefore, I was indeed happy afterwards that I could succeed in making the right choice and thereby help in putting my step to be “fully functional person”. Another aspect of the author’s theory was creative thinking as well as risk taking which states that person should not play safe all the time (Nelson et al., 2014). This aspect would involve the ability of the person to adjust as well as change and seek new experiences. I have been able to successfully follow this aspect as I had taken a risk of overcoming fear and conducted an action which I was neither comfortable nor I had done any such activity. Another aspect that is also stated by the researcher is fulfilled life were individuals should be happy and satisfied and should take up new challenges (Greene 2017). Therefore, I had successfully been able to fulfil the aspects ad was quite pleased that I had been able to reach my goal of becoming a “fully functional person”. 

Conclusion:

I believe that by following the Carl Rogers’s theory one can develop the capability to overcome fear and stress. Huge amount of confidence and will power is required for overcoming fear and I have successfully overcame fear and emerged out victorious. The coordinator of the activities named Clara later cam e to me and congratulated me on my performance. I was quite surprised to know that she was aware of the situations I was going through as one of my team members had narrated the entire incident to her. She was quite impressed by the manner by which I have been able to overcome my fear and came out victorious. Due to her advice, I tried to develop ideas about physiology that results in development of phobia and how it affects us thereby preventing us from reaching our potentials. The experiences of phobia and anxiety mainly involve a physiological process called the nervous system arousal. Researchers are of the opinion that until the nervous system is aroused, no individuals can experience arousal. However, most of the people are seen to attempt to cope with feelings of anxiety by avoiding situations or objects that mainly elicits the feelings (Schneider et l. 2014). Researchers are of the opinion that avoidance mainly prevents the nervous systems from being habituated with stress and anxiety. In this way, avoidance is seen to make sure that the feared object as well as the situation will remain novel, arousing and therefore, anxiety provoking (VanPetergom et al. 2015). Moreover, avoidance is seen to generalize over time. Therefore, researchers are of the opinion that individuals should not avoid anxiety but should rather capitalize the principle of habituation with exposure. Exposure is considered by them to be one of the most potent aspects of any therapy that remains associated with the therapy of anxiety. 

Dealing with phobias and anxiety

Therefore, in my future endeavours also, I will never allow any of my fear and anxiety to get space in my career path and would rather try to overcome them by being exposed to the object or the situation so that I can overcome my phobia and fears in the future and develop muscles as expert professionals.

Another incident that I want to reflect in the assignment is my poor performance in examination in my 12^th standard. I had always been a moderate child and had always struggled with science subjects specifically in physics and chemistry. Upon being promoted to class 12, I was having huge problems in understanding the chapters that are taught to us. At one point of time, I was so scared of studying the chapters in both the subjects that I altogether stooped attending the classes. I was becoming an escapist but I could not do anything that would help me develop love and dedication for these subjects. However, the result was quite disappointing as I got very poor marks in both the subjects and I was severely criticized by my teachers in front of the whole class. However, I tried my best and scored highest in the class in the two subjects.

I saw some of my classmates laughing at me and they started giggling and gossiping among themselves when I scored poor marks in the class. Many of my friends stopped talking to me and behaved rudely with me. All of these behaviours affected my self-esteem. My self-respect was hurt and I determined that I would work so hard on these subjects that the same classmates would come to congratulate me on my success. Therefore, I decided to plan my schedules or my annual exam and allocate good number of hours every day to polish my skills in physics and chemistry. I closed myself in a room and studied for long hours of the day. I develop proper schedules and personal development plan by which I can develop my knowledge on the chapters of both the subjects that were taught in class. When the results were finally published, everyone was quite surprised as I had achieved 85% marks in the subjects and even I got the highest marks in class. Those classmates who were laughing about me came to congratulate me.

This incident had made me understood the power of self-determination. It was my will power and self-determination that helped me overcome myself and therefore I could successfully undergo self-development for achieving success. I understood that when human beings develop the will power, they could overcome any barriers that come in their ay. This aspect is one of the most important aspects that should be known by any leaders so that he can help their subordinates over the cross period and come out victorious (Wray et al., 2017).

The importance of exposure in dealing with anxiety

One of the most important theories that can be used to describe the incidence can be self-determination theory. Deci and Ryan have put this theory forward. This theory can well establish the main foundations of self-determination and can help any professional who want to overcome failures and come out victorious. This theory tells that people have three important psychological needs to achieve self-determination (Vansteenkiste et al. 2018). One of them is called the competence that is the seeking of individuals to control the outcomes as well as experience mastery (Ryan and Deci 2017). The next is called the relatedness that is the universal want for individuals to interact, be connected to and thereby experience caring for others. The last one is the autonomy that is the universal urge to act as casual agent of one’s own life and thereby act in harmony with one’s integrated self (Mc.Eown et al. 2014). In my case, I met all these universal needs and therefore, these helped me to develop motivation and determination to work beyond my potential and achieve my goals (Devillies et al. 2014). I developed intrinsic motivation to overcome all the disappointment of my parents and teachers and therefore, these helped me to achieve my goals and objectives.

Conclusion:

Through the competence attribute, I learnt to gain mastery of the tasks and thereby developed different skills that would help me to be determined to adhere to my goals and objectives. With the attribute of relatedness, I developed a sense of belonging and attachment to different people like in this case, my parents and teachers encouraged me constantly that helped me to be compliant with my mission. With the last attribute called the autonomy, individuals need to feel in control of their own behaviours and goals. I was in complete control of my emotions and wanted to achieve the best marks.  Therefore, researchers say that these three aspects, when met and fulfilled by then, results in making them self determined and be intrinsically motivated (Devillies 2016). Therefore, I was also intrinsically motivated and therefore achieved my goals successfully.

Therefore, I was also intrinsically motivated and therefore achieved my goals successfully. In my action plan for my future endeavours, I will incorporate the three factors for developing motivation like relatedness, competence and autonomy. This will help me to be self-motivated and thereby achieve my best.

Conclusion:

From the above reflection and analysis of the theories, it can be easily understood that in order to be an effective leadership, overcoming of fears and phobias as well as to overcome failures and achieve success are two important aspects to be a successful professional. My experience of standard 12 as well as my overcoming of fear partially with my own zeal and partially due to my team motivation had helped me to learn many important aspects of leadership. I realised that in my future pathway, I might come across many failures or fears where I may not be comfortable to move forward. In such situations, overcoming the fears, one should make himself exposed to the threats and take active risks so that he can overcome them. Team bonding plays a very important role as social encouragement, emotional connection and team motivation help in overcoming failures (Diedendorff et al. 2017). Moreover, often in course of teamwork and leadership, individuals may get depressed due to previous failures. In such a situation, one should be self-determined to overcome the failures and come out victorious. Both these aspects are been learnt by me to take active part in being best team members, leaders and others and therefore individuals who develop  these attributes can reach the zenith of success.  

References:

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