Abraham Maslow listed the following characteristics of self-actualizing individuals:

1. Superior perception of reality
2. Increased acceptance of self, of others and of nature
3. Increased spontaneity
4. Increase in problem-centering
5. Increased detachment and desire for privacy
6. Increased autonomy, and resistance to enculturation
7. Greater freshness of appreciation, and richness of emotional reaction
8. Higher frequency of peak experiences
9. Increased identification with the human species
10. Changed (improved) interpersonal relations
11. More democratic character structure
12. Greatly increased creativeness
13. Certain changes in the value system

Based on his impressions of famous figures, Maslow arrived at characteristics of self-actualizers including the following:

1. More efficient perception of reality and more comfortable relations with it
2. Acceptance of self, others, and nature
3. Spontaneity; simplicity; naturalness
4. Problem-centeredness
5. The quality of detachment; the need for privacy
6. Autonomy; independence of culture and environment; will; active agents
7. Continued freshness of appreciation
8. The democratic character structure, including discrimination between means and ends, good and evil
9. Philosophical, unhostile sense of humor
10. Creativeness
11. Resistance to enculturation: The transcendence of any culture
12. The resolution of certain dichotomies^[1]

These lists can be consolidated like so:

1. superior/more efficient perception of reality and more comfortable relations with it
2. increased acceptance of self, of others and of nature
3. increased spontaneity; simplicity; naturalness
4. increase in problem-centering (objective problem-solving trumps self-consciousness)
5. increased detachment, privacy
6. autonomy: cultural transcendence, independence of environment
7. greater/continued freshness of appreciation, emotional richness
8. a more democratic character structure, including discrimination between means and ends, good and evil
9. increased identification with humanity (gemeinschaftsgefühl)
10. improved interpersonal relations
11. philosophical, unhostile sense of humor
12. greatly-increased creativeness
13. certain changes in one’s values
14. resolution of certain dichotomies

One can thus be self-actualizing in fourteen different ways. How self-actualizing are you?

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^[1] Maslow also noted that “the mystic [peak] experience…[was] a fairly common experience” for his study’s subjects, though not for all (1954, p. 164).

References:

Maslow, A. H. (1954). Motivation and personality. Retrieved from http://s-f-walker.org.uk/pubsebooks/pdfs/Motivation_and_Personality-Maslow.pdf

Maslow, A. H. (2011). Toward a psychology of being. Blacksburg, VA: Wilder Publications. (Original work published 1962)