This is the final post in the seven-part series on how to focus on yourself.
Part 8: Community
Community is vital to your social health and well-being. You can work to spend time in your local community by volunteering, attending a Meetup, going to a local coffee shop, bar, or restaurant, or seeing and interacting with people at your gym. People have started to spend more time alone by staying inside and not getting to know their neighbors and community members. Here are six ways to become active in your community.
1) Neighborhood
When you move into a new neighborhood, you can make a point to get to know your neighbors. If you don’t know your neighbors, get to know the people on your street and neighborhood. The perfect opportunity to get to know your neighbors is when you move in, and you can host a housewarming party. Another good way to get to know your neighbors is to drop a letter in their mailboxes and describe your skills and what you bring to the neighborhood. This will make your neighbors see that you are approachable and open to getting to know your neighbors.
2) Support Your Local Businesses
Another way is to support local businesses in your area instead of big-box chain stores as much as possible. Rather than always going to a chain store to buy what you need, go to your local grocery stores, clothing, hardware, or any other type of store when you need something. You can also order from smaller businesses that sell things online.
3) Non-Profits
You can support non-profits in your area is another way to be involved in your community. You can donate your time or money to a non-profit or charity you support. You can look up non-profits in your area that need help running fundraisers or volunteers for an event. This is another good way to meet like-minded people in your community.
4) Volunteer
Volunteering is another way to be involved in your community. You can volunteer for events looking for people to help, organizations, your church, or anything else that may interest you. Volunteering will allow you to meet new people who share similar values. This is also an excellent way to get involved and give back to your local community. As a bonus, it has been found that volunteering helps with loneliness!
5) Be Involved In Your Community
You can start to be actively involved in your community. Another way is that you can be involved in your local community. You can go to local Meetup events. You can meet people at your church. You can meet people at your favorite coffee shop or bar. Another way to be involved in your community is to attend local events. These regional events can range from farmer’s markets and outdoor concerts to something your town or city may celebrate unique to your area each year.
6) Virtual Community
The final way is interacting with a virtual community on your favorite social media platforms. A virtual community is a way to network and interact with people online. You can meet people online using apps and social media platforms and professionally connect with people on LinkedIn to find events in your area using Facebook and Meetup.
Part 9: Self-Actualization
When you focus on yourself, you can go on a journey to achieve self-actualization.
The previous sections of this article provide a foundation to work towards achieving self-actualization. As you improve yourself daily by focusing on yourself, you will work your way up Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. You will do this by working on yourself, growing your finances and physiological needs, being involved in your community (love and belonging needs), improving your self-esteem and self-confidence by accomplishing your goals, and finally achieving self-actualization as you realize your full potential.
Society wants to prevent you from achieving your full potential. The dangerous combination of the toxic people you will encounter in your life, limiting beliefs you were raised with by living in a fake society, and being told to conform to it will keep you from self-realization. It is up to you to go on the journey toward self-realization.
Achieve Your Full Potential In Life
From the education system to politicians to employers, society doesn’t want you to learn how to focus on yourself. They don’t want you to understand the basics, especially around money and finances, so that you can be kept in the system and never escape the rat race of life. You can escape only if you focus on yourself and work towards self-realization. How you think directly affects your choices. It is up to you to stop being a people pleaser, going along with the crowd, doing as you are told, and going on a journey of self-discovery to discover your purpose in life. To do that, you must focus on yourself. It is up to you to achieve your full potential in life.
Life Purpose
You will have found your life purpose when you discover the bullseye where those four things meet. Once you figure out your interests, natural skills, and a problem you want to solve and can make money from, you have found your life purpose. A visual of this is in the diagram below.
Society wants to prevent people from being successful and happy. Society pressures people to do many things, from going to college to thinking they must be in romantic relationships to be satisfied while neglecting to discover these four essential things. Society wants people to focus on external validation, not internal validation. All the things that lead you to find your life purpose relate to internal validation.
Conclusion
It would help if you changed your psychology of how you view yourself. This means changing your mindset and where you get your validation from in your life. Ultimately, you can do more than you think because society has programmed you since birth, through school, and by respecting institutions to delegate responsibility to others when you are responsible for your life. It is up to you to remain society’s captive or break free to unleash your full potential to the world. It will be the latter once you choose to embrace focusing on yourself.
This is the end of the final post of a seven-part series on how to focus on yourself. If you enjoyed this type of content, subscribe to Secure Single’s Substack.
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