Abraham Maslow places our need to be self-actualizing at the top of our hierarchy of needs, but instead of developing his theory of what this need consisted of, he took the reverse engineering approach. Maslow studied people that he had observed to be living self-fulfilling lives, and determined that they all had common characteristics. He concluded that self-actualizing people were:
- Experiencing life fully, vividly, and selflessly.
- Making life choices that led to progression not regression (growth over fear).
- Listening to their inner voice and letting the self emerge.
- Taking responsibility for themselves.
- Having peak experiences.
- Self-examining, finding their defenses and then giving them up.
Basically, a self-actualizing person is someone who is growing into the best person they can be.