The Hierarchy of Needs
Posted on February 15, 2008 | 1,186 views
Filed Under Self Improvement | 4 Comments
Life is not very easy, it twists you, it turns you and it has an ability to dictate you its terms. This is not true for every one, this can be for those who are weaker. On the contrary, in case of strong individuals, they take control of their lives and dictate their terms.
Focus and you will win
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It’s been believed that staying focused in life is the key to success and achievement. One who has clear goals and knows the place or position he want to reach in his life, he can attain it with smart and hard work. Achievement of goals and success is all about understanding the dynamics of life and having understood them, one can play in a way suitable for attaining those set goals.
Categorizing needs?
It is said that life is a mix of different needs. Many social scientists have tried to categories the needs in many different ways. In this article, I will take up one such model by Maslow named as Hierarchy of Needs. I will try to evaluate it and will put forward my point of view. Having read it, you will be able to at least look at things a bit clearer. As I had maintained in my previous article that thinking right is essential for success, so this article of mine might help you think right and achieve success in your field of interest.
Categorizing needs: A good idea for setting goals
Here, I feel obliged to point a fact that life generally and needs specifically are dynamic. Every individual is different from his fellow individual so do the needs. In light of such varying pattern, it is stays very difficult to predict and generalize the needs of all. In short, this scribe believes that it is hard to divide the needs in watertight compartments and visualize them in form of a set hierarchy but with a bit of conditioning, if we try to see them that way, it can help us look at life clearer. In fact, it help us can think right and by doing that we will be able to achieve something good in life.
The Hierarchy of needs
In above paragraphs, we kept talking about Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, let’s get to it now. In simplest possible words, we can describe this hierarchy of needs as a theory in psychology by Abraham Maslow that he proposed in the year 1943. This theory was proposed in a paper that he named as “A Theory of Human Motivation”. He proposed it by studying the great minds of the century including Albert Einstein, J. Adams, and Eleanor Roosevelt because to him, “the study of crippled, stunted, immature, and unhealthy specimens can yield only a cripple psychology and a cripple philosophy.” Maslow categorized the human needs under five heads and those five heads are in fact five levels of achievements. In those five categories the first four are related to physiological needs or named as Deficiency needs or D-needs and the last one is associated with psychological needs or growth needs. This theory is represented in form a triangle with basic needs at base. According to Maslow, the needs coming at higher level in the hierarchy can only come in focus when the needs at lower level are met. Though, a good deal of criticism is available in order to prove this theory void but still we can take help from this while thinking about our own needs and deciding about our priories in life. I have written the brief description of each level in this hierarchy that will help you understand it and then you can critically evaluate your personal priorities.
Here you go with the description of those five levels in hierarchy of needs:
1. Physiological Needs
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These needs are related to the essentials for the life like food, air, water, sex, etc. The needs included in this category are animal needs of all living beings required for maintaining life. According to Maslow, one can not move to the next level in hierarchy of needs until and unless he is not able meet these very elements related to existence of a creature.
2. Safety Needs
The theory of Maslow suggests that one the physiological needs are met, the individual moves to the newer level of needs that dictates the need of safety. This includes protection from odds in life including internal factors in form of disease and external factors in for enemies and environment. The financial stability comes under this category of needs. Once the safety needs are met, individual progresses to the next level of needs.
3. Love/Belonging needs
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After safety needs, there come the turn of very essence of human. As it is said that man is a social animal so once the above animal needs are met, an individual gets to become social. In that case he tries to find the sense of belongingness. It is due to this need of humans that they tend to organize clubs, organization and other such activities. The online social networks and other such tools like blogs are a modern form of this age long need of human beings.
4. Esteem needs
It is natural for all human being that they want to earn respect. This is why they try to put efforts in work and other such activities around. This use to motivate them in order to achieve a feeling that can be named as esteem and this need is on number four in this hierarchy of needs. At a lighter note, when I am writing all this for you, it do have two consideration, one, it has to do with this need of earning esteem from my readers and the second, it is related to the fifth level and top level in hierarchy of needs that is need of self actualization.
5. The Self-actualization needs
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It is said that when all the other needs are met, the self actualization need gets activated. According to Janet A. Simons, Donald B. Irwin and Beverly A. Drinnien, “These needs make themselves felt in signs of restlessness. The person feels on edge, tense, lacking something, in short, restless.” This restlessness manifests itself in form of some activities that are inert in someone’s personality. Maslow describes self actualization as a need to do or to be someone that he is born to do and to be. It is a need to create, to grow and to satisfy one’s self. In that case, it is said that a musician creates music and it offers him the self actualization experience. You can say if I am writing this article though professionally I am a doctor, it is fulfilling my self actualization needs.
Take home message
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Dynamism of life is a reality. To achieve satisfaction and success, acting smart and hard is required. Those who are good managers tend to prioritize their needs and this offers them the ability to focus on their goals and this can serve as a rule of thumb, be it one’s personal or private life. Hierarchy of needs is concept that can help you prioritize things around. It can provide a frame of reference and you can grow accordingly towards the success in your life.
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4 Responses to “The Hierarchy of Needs”
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How do you define success Dr. Malik ????
@Nayni:
In fewest possible words, success can be defined as something when you feel satisfied with your life.
hmmmm… If a person has a desire to kill 100 people and he manages to do it and is satisfied after having achieved his goal. Is he a successful person???
( May be you find it a silly question but really I’m confused regarding this concept of success . )