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Motivation
Putting Self-Actualization First
Why turning Maslow on his head will keep you motivated every day.
Posted August 7, 2019 Reviewed by Devon Frye
Tapping into motivation is hard. So many of us wish there was a direct pipeline to our wellspring of creativity, to feel like every day we are mining our best selves. But so often, there's so much else to do first.
Pay the bills. Clean the house. Eat our vegetables. Is there ever really a good time for self-actualization? And so, we earmark it for last, relegating our most important facet—vitality itself—to that "someday when."
Surprisingly, this bias doesn't just come from our internal critics, the parts of ourselves that—to borrow a phrase from psychologist Albert Ellis—should all over us. It doesn't just flow from strict parents and teachers or the Protestant work ethic that forms the foundation of American society. Believe it or not, it also comes from psychology's own story itself. And in the least likely place you'd expect it.
Many recall a colorful pyramid, like a children's set of stacked blocks, from a psychology class they took in high school or college: Abraham Maslow's famous hierarchy of needs. Maslow was fascinated with those who strove to the highest of their creative potential and sought to rescue psychology from its own obsession with pathology.
A blueprint for living creatively, his revolutionary model said we must attend to our most basic needs before we can graduate to the higher ones. We move from physiological needs of food, warmth, and rest to safety needs of emotional physical, and financial security, onward to our social needs for family, friendship, and love, and finally to our need for self-esteem, respect, and status.
Maslow termed these three levels "deficiency needs" and noted that if they weren't satisfied, one would not only feel a sense of anxiety but would lose the burning desire or motivation to focus on the higher needs above them. These A-list needs were termed self-actualization—the desire to reach our fullest potential and create works of art and invention in our personal and professional lives.
And yet, there's that trap again. Wait to write the great American novel until you've taken care of everything (or everybody) else. You can't focus on your passion until you've taken care of business. Make sure you are liked and respected before you get on the podium to speak.
I often wonder if we'd all be a whole lot healthier and happier individually and as a culture if we woke up with the reverse mindset. What if we turned Maslow on his head, and started from our self-actualization space first? What if we focused on where our creative impulse guided and inspired us, listening to that as a tuning fork to help provide the energy to fulfill all those other basic needs at the same time?
There's this funny and insidious notion that we have to earn our creative inspiration rather than just being continually open to it. It's a commonplace Western Enlightenment bias to think that these energies only come online in a linear fashion, too. As mindfulness writer Tara Brach notes, it's as if we feel like we have to climb a mountain and continually seek something better, rather than starting from the notion that we are fundamentally okay and in touch with what's most important.
Perhaps our metaphor of climbing mountains or hierarchies is itself what is keeping us stuck. If we viewed our needs, both the basic ones and the higher ones, as more like the water—fluid, dynamic, and without capacity to be so easily measured—we might have a much easier time of it. We could get out of the way of our own blocks to motivation.
Imagine starting each day with your creative self-actualization fed rather than just your body. Each day could feel like the beginning of what so often is only seen in the movies. You know the ones where the artist or scientist is backed by a stirring soundtrack as each frame brings them closer and closer to some new and exhilarating discovery.
How might we do this? Keep yourself tuned in, like an artist or scientist, to what new idea, feeling, or form might emerge as something that intrigues you, that keeps you wondering inside. This is the true source for unearthing new potential, the necessary "pay dirt" for self-actualization. This can arrive in any and all facets of your life—your professional work, your relationships, or your side gig—and the good news is that each will feed all the others.
Please don't mistake me—I'm not saying you should stop doing the dishes or paying your mortgage. But just imagine for a moment how much more joy and satisfaction we could all get out of our lives if we truly prioritized our creative dreams. Think about how much more we might accomplish and savor if we reversed the pyramid that's been ingrained in so many of us, even in the very field that sought to liberate us.
Try it out this week and see what you find. My guess is that you'll be surprised at how much more motivation you have in you—and how much more fun you'll have surfing those waves.
