Putting Your Happiness First (Maslow’s Hierarchy Of Needs)

Dr. Abraham Maslow postulated the "Hierarchy of Needs." They include physiological needs, security and safety needs, social needs, esteem needs, and self-actualized needs. In this talk, we explore the benefits of making self-actualized needs our primary focus and see how this positively influences our lower needs.

Transcript

Welcome to the Happiness Podcast.

I'm Dr.

Robert Puff.

I think for many of us,

Doing well in life is important.

If we pursue a career,

We want to be good at it.

Perhaps we want to be a medical doctor.

Perhaps we want to be a lawyer.

Perhaps we want to be a teacher.

We'll pursue that career with the expectations of if we do a good job,

That will lead to a happy life.

Or we may say,

I'm going to do a really good job parenting and make sure I'm a great parent.

And then if I do,

My kids turn out well,

That will lead to a good life.

Or I'll focus on the finances.

I'll make sure I buy a home,

Get it paid off,

Retire perhaps a few years early,

And have money in the bank to live the good life.

Or for some of us,

It may be just getting enough food for tonight so that we don't go hungry.

I think throughout history,

That's been a very common theme.

When we have enough food to get by through the winter.

Or others of us feel what's important is just to stay physically fit,

Be healthy.

And we believe if we're healthy,

Then we're going to be happy.

Or perhaps for others of us,

It's finding our soulmate,

Someone that we can love,

We can enjoy,

We can make love with,

And create a life together with.

When we find that person,

Then we'll be happy.

And then for many of us,

I think if we can just do well in life,

Get the admiration of our peers and our friends and our family,

Then all will be well.

If we reflect on the different aspirations that we're talking about,

They all have a common theme.

If this thing is in place,

Whatever it be,

Security,

Finances,

Esteem,

Financial success,

Then once I reach these goals,

All will be well.

And in some ways to support this theory,

There's a very famous psychologist by the name of Abraham Maslow.

He was actually president of the American Psychological Association.

So he's well respected within the field.

And what he's known for is not studying pathology,

But he studied people that were doing it exceptionally well in life that had reached what he called self-actualization.

So he ended up writing about and researching what's called the hierarchy of needs.

And his premise was,

If we want to reach self-actualization,

We would go through specific stages in order to get there.

And once these early stages were met,

Then we could go forward and reach higher levels of hierarchy of needs.

At the lowest level is just our physiological needs,

Food and water.

That makes sense.

And the next one he talked about was security,

Feeling that we had financial security,

Health and wellness,

And just felt secure in the world.

The third level is what he calls social needs,

Friendships,

Romantic relationships,

Family relationships,

Social groups,

Community groups,

Where a need for social interactions is being met through other people.

And then the fourth stage he called esteem needs.

And these are about doing well in life.

So other people look up to you and esteem you for what you've accomplished.

It's a sense of contributing to the world and other people taking notice of that.

Think of things like accomplishments,

Winning a prize,

Or doing well in a sport,

Or doing exceptionally well in a career,

Where again,

We're making a difference and other people notice and we like the feeling we get from that.

And then the fifth and highest level he called self-actualized needs.

And he describes self-actualized people who are self-aware,

Who are concerned about personal growth,

And far less concerned about the opinions of others.

These are people who are just doing well and doing well because of who they are,

Not because of what they've achieved,

Not because other people look up to them.

They're just doing well.

A lot about what I talk about here on the happiness podcast.

Self-actualized people in colloquial terms are happy people.

But at this point,

I want to slightly diverge from Dr.

Maslow's hierarchy of needs and look at them from a different point of view.

If you remember at the beginning of this podcast,

I was talking about how we would aim towards goals and when we reach those goals,

Whatever they would be,

We would be happy.

Now what Dr.

Abraham Maslow was talking about here is that when we reach goals,

That we can let go of them so we can actually work on being happy or self-actualized because now we don't need those goals because they're being met.

We are socially connected with people.

We're having our basic needs met.

We're not concerned about things and we can work on being self-actualized.

But unfortunately,

When we're working towards our goals,

Our steps to be happy,

Unfortunately,

They can take a great amount of our time and energy in order to achieve these goals.

We may be looking for our soulmate and spend decades looking for them and sometimes not being very successful at it.

We may look for a career that makes us satisfied and go to university for 14 straight years and then get into that career,

Work our way up in the company or whatever we're doing and find we're not self-actualized.

We may reach a point in our lives where we finally get enough in the bank that we feel financially secure,

At least somewhat,

And then health problems come and we aren't happy anymore.

We may do a really good job trying to be the best parent that we know and really invest our time,

Our energy,

And our efforts into raising these beautiful kids.

And then they grow up and sometimes they move away and sometimes just a distance gets created.

Sometimes not,

But sometimes there is.

There's just threats to anything that we invest in externally because something can go awry.

We can work our way up in our career and do exceptionally well.

And one day we walk into our office and we're fired.

These are all incredibly challenging things that can happen to us when we put our energy towards external events making us happy.

There's just always going to be some threat because something can happen.

We can't control things external to us.

We can influence them,

But we can't necessarily control them.

The world goes by a different rhythm than we may want it to.

So no matter how secure,

No matter how safe we feel,

The threat's there.

There's impending doom that's just around the horizon.

And we all know that's true.

We all know people,

Perhaps ourselves,

That everything was going wonderfully.

And then boom,

We get the cancer announcement.

Boom,

We get fired.

Boom,

The person we thought we were going to spend a life with leaves us or dies.

Boom,

One of our kids gets sick and dies.

I can go on and on.

And we know these are true.

Because when we invest externally on the four hierarchy of needs that Abraham Maslow is talking about,

There's always a threat because that gives other people power over us or life power over us.

The one thing we can control is working on being self-actualized or happy.

And what if that were our goal?

We say the first thing I'm going to work on every day throughout the day is making sure that I'm living a good life regardless of what's happening externally.

Then,

What kind of parent would we be if we're a self-actualized parent?

What kind of doctor would we be if we're a self-actualized doctor?

What kind of teacher would we be if we're a self-actualized teacher?

What kind of partner would we be if we're a self-actualized partner?

If we make that our focus,

I believe whatever we do,

Whatever accomplishment or goal or whatever is important to us and we value,

We'll do it better.

Because when we're self-actualized,

When we're happy,

We're really at a peak place where nothing externally is generating that happiness.

It's coming from within.

So the other thing that's beautiful here,

Which Abraham Maslow discovered when he was studying self-actualized people,

Is that because the external things don't matter,

That no matter what happens in a person's life that could be interpreted by most people as negative,

It isn't by the self-actualized person.

They are okay.

Because they've reached the point where realization is that if I'm going to be happy,

It's going to come from within me,

Not externally,

Not through security,

Not through relationships,

Not even through esteem of others.

It's going to come from who and what I am,

Living well in the present moment and flowing with that moment.

So what if my argument today is we made that the focus,

Being the best person that we can be and see how that manifests in a relationship with another person,

Being the most self-actualized person that we can be and see how that positively affects our career.

What would it be like to be raised by a self-actualized parent or to be that self-actualized parent to our children?

How would it impact them?

How would it impact us?

One of the most wonderful things that comes from really living a self-actualized life is that fear dissipates because we are okay with whatever happens.

We don't need the esteem of others to be happy.

We don't need our kids to turn out a certain way to say life is good.

We don't need a partner to be there for us in order to find joy in our life.

We bring joy to wherever we go.

So today what I'm emphasizing is what if we do work for our goals,

Whether it's being a wonderful parent,

Whether it's being an awesome partner,

Whether it's to be a great employee or accomplish things within our career,

Whatever we're working towards,

Or just finding a home that makes us feel safe or having enough food on the table so we don't have to worry about going hungry.

We also work on every day being good within ourselves,

Being self-actualized.

We give energy,

We give time,

We give effort towards understanding what a self-actualized life looks like,

What a happy life looks like.

That's where our energy goes.

That's where our mental and emotional resources get allocated to because we realize that if we do that,

Then whatever journey,

Whatever path we're on that's important to us,

Like reaching some goal,

That we'll reach it better because along the way we're going to bring more to that accomplishment.

It is true sometimes we may not get to our goals as quickly because we are making time for self-care.

We're making time to watch sunsets,

To smell the roses of life,

To being present.

And that is a choice.

And because we do that,

We may externally be judged by others.

We may not be promoted as far in our career because we go on vacation and take time off.

We may be looked on by other parents because sometimes we don't go to every school event because instead we're doing something for self-development.

We may be looked on others,

Even our partner,

With disdain because we're taking time to study,

To explore what a self-actualized life looks like and making room for that.

So getting rid of things that keep us from being unhappy.

If they want to go hang out at the bar,

Not that that's necessarily bad,

But if they're going there and it's a ruckus,

Negative environment,

We may not go with them as often and that may cause conflict.

But we can't control what other people do.

What we can control is our response.

So again,

What if instead of all the things we're looking for externally to make us happy,

We just worked on being happy no matter what.

That is the whole premise of this happiness podcast.

How do we do that?

I believe any and all of us can do that no matter what circumstances we're in,

Whether we're truly concerned about just getting the food on our plate tonight to whether we have accomplished in the world's eyes things that are extraordinary,

But we're still not happy.

We in any circumstances,

No matter what,

I believe can have a self-actualized life.

It does take work,

A lot of work.

It does take effort and time,

A lot of time,

A lot of effort.

But if we make that our goal,

I believe all the other things that are important to us will do better.

And we'll still reach some,

Perhaps,

But whatever happens,

We will do well all the way through the journey so that when we do finally take our last breath of life,

We can confidently with true passion say,

That was a good life.

Thank you for joining me on the happiness podcast.

Until next time,

Accept what is,

Love what is.

Reviews

Thank you for this alternative & in-depth thought of Maslow’s theory, it is a true representation & stark reminder, that life can fluctuate between the various phases.

Your talks so resonate with me. As an older woman who is now a cancer survivor there's so much reflection. Thank you for your talks and your podcast

Insightful

Nice one 👌🏾🫶🏾

Excellent. Thank you 🙏✨

Thank you for this easy to follow talk! 🙏✨️

Veryyy good!

So true! Thank you for this 🕉️

Excellent deep Bows

💝🙏

Thank you Robert! This was most helpful…

Really loved this & it has given me hope in letting go & loving more. So inspiring thank you ❤️

Thank you🙏🏼. Good advice

Amazing!

i am living in a dark time right now but i find moments of joy. your talk was very uplifting. thank you 🙏💜

Again another perfect lesson. It seems like these appear just as I need them. I struggle with this but work daily to be better. 🙏

🙏😊

Great topic