Maslow's Hierarchy

 

 

 

Maslow's Hierarchy: Maslow suggested that all motivation is affected by fundamental subconscious human needs. Deficiencies in these basic needs will affect your overall motivation. These can be brought into the conscious for evaluation and correction. There are 5 basic needs:

  • 1. Physiological
  • 2. Safety
  • 3. Love and Affection
  • 4. Esteem
    • a) Strength, achievement, confidence, adequacy, freedom, independence
    • b) Reputation and Prestige
  • 5. Self actualization

maslowes hierarchy

The idea is that you must satisfy your physiological needs to a certain extent before you can begin to focus on Safety needs and so on up the chain. Some people have higher thresholds than others before they can move on.

 

For example, you may need to be 90% satisfied with love and affection before you can move on to deal with esteem. This may cause problems if a close relationship breaks down as you will focus a lot of your energy on repairing or replacing it which will seriously affect your motivation to attain your higher needs. Knowing where your vulnerability lies in this way will make sure that you make sufficient efforts to maintain those important foundations.

 

So, on a physiological level you need to maintain your health, on a safety level perhaps make sure you have adequate insurance and on a love and affection level make sure your spouse, family and friends with the care and attention they deserve. Losing any of these could be disastrous to your success in life.