“Our actions are motivated in order to achieve certain needs”
Abraham Maslow, of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs fame says that we all have levels of need and that only when one level is met can we move onto the next and then through all levels to achieve ‘self actualisation.’
His model is a five-staged approach with the most basic of our needs being physiological. In simplistic terms, this first stage is about life needs, such as food, water and shelter. Once this need is met we then look to be safe and know we have security. This may be the security of income through work, financial security through saving or investment as well as ensuring we are physically safe through living in environments that have law, order and structure. From there we move into family, love, friends, affection and belonging in personal, professional and community settings. When that need is met we look more inward around personal and professional achievement, status, responsibility and reputation and then the last need transcends all else and is about seeking personal growth and fulfillment and it may or may not be tied to the other needs. Often, at this level we may want to be independent of the world and wish to exist above and apart from material possessions!
Sound simple?
Often however, pursuit of these needs creates the very opposite of the original intent. Where we strive to meet our basic physiological needs we burden ourselves financially which ultimately confines and limits our ability to live life. For example, I may have my house or apartment but my loan repayments are so high I am just surviving, leaving my other needs around social belonging and self esteem un-met. I may be in a soul-destroying job that is providing me with plenty of money to meet my physiological and safety needs, but is so depressing it is having an adverse affect on my social belonging need and not providing me with opportunity to meet my sense of achievement and self actualisation needs.
What to do?
The answer is balance and perspective.
Maslow intended his model to help managers identify that a team member cannot be a team player (level 3) if his house is about to be re-possessed (level 2) and a sales person can’t be motivated to achieve targets (level 4) when he or she is potentially having problems with their marriage (level 3).
It is however, equally useful for determining where we are at in our lives, to help decide how we might want to be doing something different or better.
For me, I am definitely at levels 4 & 5, having many times previously worked through levels 1 – 3. That is, life for me all is about freedom of choice through having achieved status and reputation and now seeking personal growth through the pursuit of activities that feed my soul.
What can happen though as we meet one need and move to the next is we potentially spiral back into survival mode at levels 1 & 2 through being tied to a level of money to maintain a chosen lifestyle. It begs the question, how many of us see ourselves as the job we do, or the level of money we earn, or the status trappings we have; the flash car (s), the big house, the bigger toys, the bling, the holidays?
This mindset I think, keeps us moving up and down levels 1 to 3 of Maslow’s hierarchy, feeling a little like we are spinning our heels and wondering “surely there has to be more to life”.
Once that thought enters our consciousness it usually sets off a series of events that enables us to do something different or better in order to realise our true potential. Change is required, and often change is scary, but as Maslow suggests it is all around motivation; the motivation to make change in order to achieve that which makes you happy.
Here’s a thought.
Be afraid of nothing –
you have within you
all wisdom
all power
all strength
all understanding
~ Eileen Caddy