Thriving is Self-Actualizing

Thriving is Self-Actualizing which is good news. It means anyone can be in charge of their mental and emotional states. Anyone can be in charge of their career path because self-improvement impacts our circles and environment.

Contribution is a person’s self-expression of what they know and can do. Self-actualization on Maslow’s pyramid is at the top after all the survival behaviors have been ascended. There is no ceiling on self-actualization which is why records of every kind are continuously broken.

Get On Top of the World

Thriving is a state of feeling on top of the world. This is a strong form of happiness. Happiness is a biological state created by the brain after certain hormones and neurotransmitters have been stimulated. They are stimulated by our thoughts, intentions, and actions or behaviors.

Therefore, there is a formula for happiness and self-actualization which will result in thriving. Any thoughts, intentions, or behaviors that support surviving, which is Nature’s goal, will result in dopamine, serotonin, oxytocin, and endorphins. What are some of those behaviors? Top of the list is learning. Then there is creativity, contribution, caring, protecting, and exercising to name a few.

Let’s Stimulate Happiness by Design

It is clear we can stimulate happiness in our work and personal lives with the correct behaviors. Let’s say the correct behaviors stimulate dopamine for the simplest example. Dopamine can be the result of thoughts and intentions. Planning a trip, planning to help someone, a new business, art, or something else meaningful to us stimulates dopamine and dopamine sustains a longer effort.

Seeking a way to help an organization, our family, our community, mankind, or the planet can all stimulate happiness feelings. We frequently have to learn more about what we want to do to make that contribution. That is why learning is usually the first step on the ladder.

Challenge and Risk Have to be in Our Daily Mind Set

To optimize the feelings, the target behavior has to have challenge and risk. The risk doesn’t have to be mortal danger, just the risk of not succeeding is sufficient. The brain thrives on challenge. If you challenge yourself all day on tasks within your capability but that offer just a small stretch, you will be thriving.

How many targets can you create for self-improvement that you can work on daily? How about diet, physical conditioning, meditating, problem solving, new ideas, contributing, leading, and motivating others? Now, how do you plan your time to incorporate each of these behaviors?

Most important, how do you start weeding out the time wasters, distractions, and negative behaviors? You know what those are? Overeating, looking at screens, internet surfing looking for cat videos, to-do-lists, errands, and phone mania. These take away from our creative energies. They drain our motivation. They are procrastinations.

Create time blocks for the activities that will move you forward most effectively. Prioritize the best actions for progress. Sideline everything else. You might need the support of those around you. Look at the return on investment/ ROI of each activity.

Getting your life moving forward with improvement on several fronts is self-actualizing. It is thriving. You will finish each day saying ” that was a good day”

***

Podcasts: Would you like to listen to all these posts on podcast. Tune into my channel for listening on the go. Everything About Podcasts

As a Thriving Worker Consultant, I can engage in conversations with employers on how to begin the process of helping workers thrive and reach peak performance. It begins with a conversation to see how far an organization is willing to go to change the culture for workers.

Great practices for daily living can be learned with the Markap Series of Books. If your organization would like live presentations or Zoom meetings, they can be arranged for small to large groups.

The Markap Books:

Self-Leadership, Gratitude, Happiness, and Start Now

See Books on the Home Page

Contact me at Mark@markap1.com

Workers can be coached to thrive.