Near the end of the definition of Greatness!, we reach “the highest priority” of those people, places and things with whom and which one has relationships and to whom and which and for whom and which one’s values make one responsible. Exploring and understanding the priorities of our relationships, of course, requires us to discuss some way of organizing our relationships in life.
Our relationships contend with each other in a hierarchical manner. To develop a frame of reference against which we can understand our hierarchy of relationships (sorry, that will have to wait until the next post), let’s first revisit a more familiar psychological hierarchy (today’s prerequisite to tomorrow’s Great! Stuff!).
People’s Hierarchy of Needs
Abraham Maslow proposed the psychological theory that people have a hierarchy of needs in his 1943 paper, A Theory of Human Motivation. Maslow posited people have a hierarchy of needs organized in the shape of a pyramid, with the largest and lowest levels of needs at the bottom, and the need for self-actualization at the top.
The lower four layers of Maslow’s pyramid contain what he called the “deficiency needs” labeled as physiological, safety, love/belonging, and esteem. If these “deficiency needs” are not met, the body, mind or spirit or some combination of them, shows signs of mental or physical stress.
Physiological needs are the literal requirements for human survival. Once your physical needs are relatively satisfied, your safety needs take precedence. Seeking safety, you direct your behavior toward a yearning for a predictable, orderly world in which injustice and inconsistency are under control, the familiar is frequent and the unfamiliar is rare, job security is present, as are grievance procedures for protecting the individual from unilateral authority, along with savings accounts, insurance policies, and the like.
After your physiological and safety needs are met, you focus on the social aspects of life and the emotional feelings of friendship, intimacy, and a sense of belonging and acceptance. The belonging needs span the continuum of relationships great and small from large social groups, such as religious groups, clubs, the workplace, professional organizations, sports teams, and gangs, to small, but important, social connections, such as family members, intimate partners, mentors, close colleagues, confidants.
Everyone needs to like and love and be liked and loved by others. Without these social elements, many people become susceptible to loneliness, social anxiety, and clinical depression. This need for belonging can often overcome your physiological and security needs, depending on the strength of the peer pressure. If you are an anorexic, for example, you may ignore the need to eat and the security of health for a feeling of control and belonging.
More than feeling loved and belonging, many people desire to be respected and to have self-esteem and self-respect, and to be accepted and valued by others. They seek to gain recognition through activities that give you a sense of contribution and self-value, be it in a vocation or an avocation.
If you suffer from a low self-esteem, it can lead you to exhibit an inferiority complex and an excessive need for respect from others. Sufferers of low self-esteem may seek fame or glory, which again depends on others. Such people cannot, however, improve their view of themselves simply by receiving fame, respect, and glory externally; they must first accept themselves internally.
Most people have a need for a stable level of self-respect and self-esteem. Maslow noted two versions of esteem needs, a lower one and a higher one. The lower one is the need for the respect of others, the need for status, recognition, fame, prestige, and attention. The higher one is the need for self-respect, the need for strength, competence, mastery, self-confidence, independence and freedom. The latter one usually ranks higher because it rests more on inner competence derived through experience.
Reaching a clear understanding of this final self-actualization level of needs requires not only achieving, but also mastering the previous physiological, safety, love, and esteem needs. Your need for self-actualization begins with the concept that you must be all you can be. In terms of being Great! All the time!, fulfilling this level of need for self-actualization requires first perceiving what your perfect potential is and then promoting your practically perfect performance of that potential.
In the abstract, this broad definition of the need for self-actualization is very general, but, when it is applied to you as an individual, the need for self-actualization, according to Maslow, becomes very specific. For example one person may have the strong desire to become an ideal parent, while another may be driven to financial success, while still another desires athletic excellence, and still another seeks expression through art or inventions.
Let’s leave the universe of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs and in the next post we will focus on a similar pyramidal hierarchy of life – The Great! Hierarchy of Personal Relationships.
In the meantime, you GOTTABGATT!, so Go Out There Today and Be Great! All the Time!