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Know Your Needs

Overview

What drives us in life? What motivates us to achieve extraordinary feats in life? What makes people happy?

The answer is Our Needs. Our needs are at the core of motivation, and when addressed, we find our state of Comfort and Happiness. We all have an inherent desire to be all that we possibly can be.

Abraham Maslow introduced the concept of the Hierarchy of Needs in 1943. It was his humanist nature that he was inquisitive to find out what made people comfortable and happy; and what would they do to achieve that comfort and happiness.

Objectives

To Know what ‘Need’ is
To Understand Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs
To Understand Human Needs
To Know our Responsibilities

What is ‘Need’?

A ‘Need’ is something that is necessary for a person to live a healthy life. Needs are distinguished from wants because a deficiency would cause a clear adverse outcome, such as dysfunction or death. Needs can be objective and physical, such as food, or they can be subjective and psychological, such as the need for self-esteem.

Abraham Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs
Abraham Maslow defined a Hierarchy of Human Needs that stated the lower needs must be met before an individual can strive to meet the higher needs.

Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs can be explained as a pyramid that has the most basic needs at the bottom and the most intricate needs at the top.

Low-Level & High-Level Needs

The lower level needs are more physical in nature like water, food, and sleep, etc. When our lower-level needs are met, we proceed to accomplish our next level of needs. As we slowly proceed towards the top of the pyramid, our needs tend to become more psychological like love, intimacy, and self-esteem.

The low-level needs are more instinctive and much stronger motivators, as they arise to lack of specific needs. While the high-level needs are more desires for growth and achievement.

Maslow’s strongly believed in the continuity of the process of self-development of a person, to ensure that they achieve what they indeed are capable of. However, he also recognized that for some people, the natural progression of needs would be different from the others; like for some people self-esteem might be more important than friendship.

Abraham Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs has 5 levels, and these levels are:

Physiological Needs
Safety Needs
Belongingness and Love Needs
Esteem Needs
Self-Actualization Needs

Physiological Needs

These are needs that are necessary for continuity of life and bodily function, and if not met, can lead to disability and ultimately death. Sexual reproduction is also considered an essential physiological need, as it is critical to procreate for the species to survive.

These needs are:

Food
Water
Oxygen
Sleep
Protection from extreme temperatures
Elimination
Sensory needs
Motor needs

Safety Needs

As we progress through the pyramid, the needs tend to become more intricate, like Safety and Security. The need to ensure that the species survives and continues to exist. Our need for security is based on our surrounding environment and the society we live in. For example, our need to have an occupation, savings, and insurances is to ensure the continuous flow of money under any circumstance. Our need for safety also ensures that we have comfortable and secure homes too.

The need to be free from anxiety and fear
The need to be secure in the environment
The need for order and routine

Physiological and Safety needs together form our most rudimentary needs, as per Maslow.

Belongingness and Love Needs

Humans are social beings, and without social contact, a lot of psychological issues can start to surface. Our emotional state drives our behavior, and the need to belong is extremely strong. We try to fulfill these needs through family and friends, through relationships and commitments, through communities and religions. To keep depression and anxiety out of our lives, we need to address our needs for belongingness and love.

Social acceptance, friendship, to be loved
Need to belong, to relate to others
Sexuality -a person’s feelings/attitude toward their masculine/feminine nature

Esteem Needs

Once the physiological, safety, and love needs are addressed, our self-esteem starts to become more and more important. We all enjoy appreciation and most often strive to ensure that we continue to feel what we felt while being appreciated. These needs are addressed by accomplishments and also the feeling of self-worth. We all need to know that we are an integral part of the ecosystem that we exist in and that the people around us recognize it. As our esteem needs our addressed, our confidence keeps increasing and improving.

Feeling important and worthwhile – includes respect, approval, appreciation
We engage in activities that bring achievement, success, and recognition
We gain self-confidence and begin to direct our actions toward becoming what we WANT to be

Social and Esteem needs together form our psychological needs, as per Maslow.

Self-Actualization Needs

Maslow said: “What a man can be, he must be!” And Self-Actualization needs are exactly that. When we have achieved our rudimentary and psychological needs, then we need to find the extremes of our capabilities. This drives us towards achieving our true potential. Maslow believed that if one has a talent, then they should use it to their full potential; otherwise the talent is wasted.

Self-Actualization is not only about obtaining our full potential; but also becoming confident, eager to express our beliefs, and willing to reach out to others to help them.

Self-Actualizing Characteristic

Keen sense of reality - aware of real situations - objective judgment, rather than subjective
See problems in terms of challenges and situations requiring solutions, rather than see problems as personal complaints or excuses
Need for privacy and comfortable being alone
Reliant on own experiences and judgment - independent - not reliant on culture and environment to form opinions and views
Not susceptible to social pressures - non-conformist
Democratic, fair and non-discriminating - embracing and enjoying all cultures, races and individual styles
Socially compassionate - possessing humanity
Accepting others as they are and not trying to change people

To meet our Human Needs

We usually learn what works by trial-and-error
Direct methods v. Indirect methods
Stress reactions
Challenges and responsibilities

Direct Methods

Hard work
Setting realistic goals
Cooperating with others
Evaluating effectively

Indirect Methods

Suppression
Projection
Denial
Rationalization
Compensation

*Note: These are unhealthy when used too often, but sometimes allows us to cope!

When defense mechanisms are inadequate, stress reactions develop

Chronic complaining and demanding behavior
Agitation with manipulative behavior
Restlessness
Sleeplessness
Depression-be alert for potential suicide
Withdrawal

Responsibilities

Take advantage of the opportunity to learn, develop basic skills, see the purpose of each assignment
Set your standards for your performance
Establish study habits that work best for you
Relate learning to past experience
Measure each achievement in terms of progress toward your career goal
Be honest with yourself and take responsibility for your own actions

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