Maslow and Productivity

I f you spend time wondering why you do what you do and for what purpose, have a good look through this article, it may surprise you.

Many of us are pursuing activities that directly or indirectly we hope will take us to new levels of fulfilment. But how can we set ourselves up to achieve fulfilment in our chosen field, and in our lives generally?

Fulfilment might also be called Self-Actualisation or expressing one’s full potential. According to Abraham Maslow (American psychologist whose theories have been influential in 20th century thought), it is intrinsic growth of what is already in the organism, or more accurately, of what the organism is.

Maslow believed we have a hierarchy of needs, beginning with (a) basic needs for food, shelter, then (b) needs for safety and security, (c) needs for love and belonging, (d) the need for self esteem, and (e) the need for self-actualisation. We cannot meet the higher-order needs until the lower ones are met. A hungry or fearful person will not recognise yet their need for self actualisation.

How do we characterise Self-Actualised (SA) people?

* Generally they are realistically oriented with an efficient perception of reality extending into all areas of their life. SA persons are unthreatened and unfrightened by the unknown. They usually have a superior ability to reason, to see the truth.

* SA people accept themselves, others and the natural world the way they are. They see human nature as is, have rid themselves of crippling guilt or shame, enjoy themselves without regret or apology, and have no unnecessary inhibitions.

* Spontaneous in their inner life, thoughts and impulses, SA people are unhampered by convention. Their ethics is autonomous, they are individuals, and are motivated towards continual improvement.

* Focus on problems outside themselves. SA people tend to have a mission in life requiring much energy, and their mission is their reason for existence. They are usually serene and worry-free as they pursue their mission with unshakeable determination.

* Detachment, the need for privacy. Alone but not lonely, unflappable, retain dignity amid confusion and personal misfortunes, objective. SA people are self starters, responsible for themselves, own their behaviour.

* Autonomous, independent of culture and environment. SA’s rely on inner self for satisfaction. Resilient and stable in the face of hard knocks, they are self contained, independent from love and respect of others.

* Freshness of appreciation. Have a fresh rather than stereotyped appreciation of people and things. Moment to moment living is thrilling, transcending and spiritual. SA’s live the present moment to the fullest.

* Peak experiences. “Feelings of limitless horizons opening up to the vision, the feeling of being simultaneously more powerful and also more helpless than one ever was before, the feeling of ecstasy and wonder and awe, the loss of placement in time and space with, finally, the conviction that something extremely important and valuable had happened, so that the subject was to some extent transformed and strengthened even in his daily life by such experiences.” Abraham Maslow.

Eight Ways To Self Actualize

Work towards meeting and satisfying the lower-order needs (food, shelter, then safety and security, then love and belonging, and then self esteem). Once you have done this, and I acknowledge that it may be difficult and time-consuming, you will be able to make progress with the following:

1. Experience things fully, vividly, selflessly. Throw yourself into the experiencing of something: concentrate on it fully, let it totally absorb you.
 

2. Life is a moment-by-moment choice between safety (out of fear and need for defence) and risk (for the sake of progress and growth): Consciously make the growth choice many times a day.
 

3. Let your true self emerge. Try to go beyond socially-defined modes of thinking and feeling, let your inner experience tell you what you truly feel.
 

4. When in doubt, be honest. It may take some courage, but look honestly at yourself and take responsibility for who you are and what happens to you. Self-delusion is the enemy of self-actualisation.
 

5. Listen to your own tastes. Be prepared to be unpopular if necessary.

6. Use your intelligence, work to do well the things you want to do, no matter how insignificant they seem.

7. Make peak experiencing more likely: get rid of illusions and false notions. Learn what you are good at and conversely what you are not good at.

8. Know thyself. Who are you? What are you? What is good and what is bad for you? Where you are going? What is your mission?

Opening yourself up to yourself in this way means recognising one’s defences–and then finding the courage to give them up.

Good luck,

Committed to YOUR Personal Productivity,

James is a productivity coach specializing in working with people who are procrastinators and those who want results quickly. His ability to get brilliant results with his clients is quite amazing…

The Productivity Coach

Extraordinary Results for Professional and Personal Freedom

To Find Out the “5 Secrets of REALLY Successful People” go to…

The Productivity Coach

P:      0421 210 444

Tips to Stop Procrastination

You Already Know WHAT To Do

Procrastination isn’t so much a matter of poor organization as it is a psychological block:

Trust me, procrastination is not a time-management problem. It’s a complex problem involving personality, situations and motivation.

Here are three psychologically sound tips to help procrastinators overcome this problem.

1. Just get started. Don’t waste time over-planning and over-thinking; research shows that once you actually begin a task, your perceptions of that task change. And making even a little progress boosts your well-being, which in turn gives you more motivation to work.

2. Suck it up. It is a distastesful task? It is difficult? Would you rather be doing something — anything! — else? Tough. You need to just plunge in and deal with it. It’s a  hard-nosed approach but necessary with procrastinators, who tend to avoid dealing with the negative emotions associated with unpleasant tasks.

Don’t Give in

Don’t “give in to feeling good” such that you focus on short-term mood repair. Keep your focus on long-term progress on your goal.

Brutal Honesty

3. Be honest with yourself. Stop the self-deception. You might argue that you’ll feel more like doing it tomorrow, that you work better under pressure, or that it can wait. As Pychyl notes, you won’t, you don’t, and it can’t. Instead of giving in, recognize these thoughts as red flags that signal your desire to procrastinate and go back to tips 1 and 2.

Action First, Feelings Follow

One can liken procrastinators to 3-year-old’s who don’t want to do something, arguing, “I don’t feel like it. I need to feel better in order to act. First, I need to feel better.” Wrong, he says; in fact, your feelings will follow your behaviors, so progress on that task will actually improve your mood.

While tips aren’t a sure-fire recipe for success — after all, tips are only useful if you follow them — I think these three could really make a dent in your procrastination habit.

Committed to YOUR Personal Productivity,

James is a productivity coach specializing in working with people who are procrastinators and those who want results quickly. His ability to get brilliant results with his clients is quite amazing…

“Fast Tracking YOUR SUCCESS… SuccessFULL Living!”

To Find Out the “5 Secrets of REALLY Successful People” go to…

The Productivity Coach

P: 0421 210 444