How can Maslow’s hierarchy of needs help you?

Maslow proposed his hierarchy of needs 80 years ago, so it is well tried and tested. Although (as he noted) there was little scientific basis behind his idea, its influence, popularity and relevance remains clear through the 2.4 million results thrown up by googling it, including BBC and Harvard articles highlighting its strong influence on the world of business.

So what is Maslow's hieararchy of needs?

Maslow shared a five layered pyramid, shown in the following diagram, with on the right hand side a more recent, simplified, set of three groupings. This proposes that we each need to exist, to relate to others and to grow, and that we work through these needs from the bottom up.

Our first focus is to meet our existence needs (food, water, warmth, rest, shelter and safety).

If our existence needs are in place, then we can focus on our relatedness needs, ie relationships, friends, self-acceptance and self-esteem.

Only when we have met our existence needs and our relatedness needs, can we fully focus on our growth, leading to self-fulfilment, achieving our potential, and being the best that we can be (self-actualisation) .

How can this help me?

It can help you overcome obstacles and achieve your goals. Here's a story of two ways it helped me:

1. A moment of gratitude I loved the idea of a daily practice to remind myself of 1, 3 or 5 things to be grateful for, to kickstart and motivate my mentoring practice, or to calm me down at bedtime with a positive frame of mind. But when I sat down to do this, I struggled to count any blessings - my mind started wandering and the exercise felt like wading through treacle. Using the above diagram sparks off many good things to pick and choose from, which lifts my mood and improves my motivation.
   

2. Being the best that I can be All my life I have strived to be the best [daughter, student, partner, coach, supervisor] that I can be - and yet, something was getting in the way, and I couldn't work out what that was. This model helped me realise that the obstacle is my self-esteem, which is one of the relatedness needs. However much validation, affirmation and praise I received, I still didn't feel good about myself. After this lightbulb moment, I started focusing on acknowledging positive feedback, and accepting that I, and my self-esteem are good enough. This enables me to stay in the top area of the pyramid and enjoy trying to be my best.

   
   

How can this model help you move forward? Enjoy exploring how it may help you.