The most successful people are passionate people. What is passion but a drive to engage in something you love. Passion is love. When this indescribable word “love” is applied to our desire to move forward, magic things happen.
It is hard to hold a passionate person down because failure is not a concern. They are engaging because they love what they are doing. If no one paid attention, the passionate person would continue. If the goal is to help others, the passion takes on rocket boosters.
We seem to enjoy movies where someone feels charged with the task of saving the world. They can’t stop regardless of the obstacles, and there are always many, because mankind depends on them. People like Bruce Willis, Harrison Ford, Sylvester Stallone, and Dwayne Johnson are just a few of the actors who always face great odds from the beginning to the end of the movie. We love that they always win which happens because they never give up.
What if you applied this passion to self-actualization. Picture one of the above starts deciding that self-actualization was his goal and he would devote all the passion he would normally use to save the world to making himself the most effective person possible with the idea of making a contribution to others.
This is the drive that lights up our soul. Take the lives of Elon Musk, Bill Gates, and Jeff Bezos. If they were in a movie, we would see the uphill battle each faced to impose their ideas on the world. Its easy to look at them after they have come out of the tunnel with great success, but we also were able to watch them from the early days. In college, Bill Gates was writing one line of code at a time and pushing it into a big computer. Now Microsoft runs computers.
You don’t have to conquer the world to live a worthwhile life. But your life becomes very worthwhile when you have visions of yourself contributing to making other lives better. How about doctors that travel. The world rarely recognizes them, but they are warriors often risking their lives to help people in need.
Self-actualization is the act Maslow described as working on your potential, your purpose, your reason for being here. I like to break it down to acts that all stimulate the happiness brain chemicals of dopamine, serotonin, oxytocin, and endorphins. Living on these hormones and neurotransmitters is what drives thriving.
My acts of thriving are learning, creativity, contributing, caring, health, exercise, and meditating. Each delivers rewards that benefit me and lead to me making a contribution to others. This connects me to myself, to my circles, mankind, and the planet. By becoming the best I can become, I am part of the already existing drive Nature imbues with all the tiny particles that make up who we are. Their task is to make us the best we can be.
The fact we are star dust says the drive to become the best we can be is a Universal concept that started from the very beginning. From the first cell that evolved to make man, we see a tremendous drive to continuously improve, adapt, and make the next generation better.
You might say it is your evolutionary duty to find your potential and manifest it. What are the rewards of beneficial habits and behaviors? Happiness. One act contributes, but five or six every day create a wave of happiness brain chemicals that become addicting. I am addicted to writing, sharing, exercising, health, caring, and teaching. They are in my blood. They are who I am. They define me.
We need something to learn. We love to express ourselves by doing something creative which includes problem solving. We can enjoy the pleasure of building health by our food choices. We exercise our bodies and immediately feel our connection to Nature. We care for others and give them our love. We try to make the world a better place by treating everyone kindly and sharing our skills with those who have not started doing what we do.
We could go from zero to thriving in 60 seconds by creating a comprehensive plan of how we were going to self-actualize and having the intention of starting it now. Just thoughts, intentions, and behaviors activate the happiness brain chemicals of thriving.
Read More
Emotions Are A Weapon Not A Hindrance
You Are in Charge of How Others See You
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