Happiness to Success

What is the job that stands out in your mind as one of your favorites? How happy were you there? So much of what we do and accomplish is connected to our overall happiness. In this sense, happiness leads to success.

One of the earliest psychologists to study and put more emphasis on happiness — as opposed to the previous leaders like Freud who focused more on unhappiness — was Maslow.

Maslow is famous for the hierarchy of needs. Self-actualization is one of these needs: the ability or fulfillment of one’s talents or potential.

Human life will never be understood unless its highest aspirations are taken into account. Growth, self-actualization, the striving toward health, the quest for identity and autonomy, the yearning for excellence (and other ways of phrasing the striving “upward”) must by now be accepted beyond question as a widespread and perhaps universal human tendency … (Maslow, 1954, Motivation and Personality, pp.xii-xiii)

Through lots of interest in the area, Maslow looked deeper into what drives humans to reach their full potential, and what humans are truly capable as their healthy selves. When one is healthy, then nearly anything is possible. Our biggest limitation is our own mind. Once we are able to grasp this and fully harness the strength of our own mind, then everything is a potential.

Through a series of trials and tribulations, Maslow progressively quit law school and Cornell only to eventually find his true passion and calling.

In a world that is full of horrific news stories, it’s freshening to think of Maslow’s optimistic frame of mind. He views and considers that humans are inherently good people, trying their best. At the very worst, humans are neutral and not evil people. It all starts with better understanding each other.

The more we learn about man’s natural tendencies, the easier it will be to tell him how to be good, how to be happy, how to be fruitful, how to respect himself, how to love, how to fulfill his highest potentialities … The thing to do seems to be to find out what one is really like inside; deep down, as a member of the human species and as a particular individual (Maslow, 1987, p. 6).

This is similar to Stephen Covey’s famous 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: seek first to understand.

And then another one focused on self-actualization:

What a man can be, he must be. This need we may call self-actualization…It refers to the desire for self-fulfillment, namely, to the tendency for him to become actualized in what he is potentially. This tendency might be phrased as the desire to become more and more what one is, to become everything that one is capable of becoming. (Maslow, 1954, Motivation and Personality, p. 93)

Through his research and observations, the people able to become self-actualized enjoy nearly all facets of life. The ability to fully utilize one’s abilities and talents allows them to feel as though they are contributing to society with their own unique talents.

People who are able to be self-actualized often focus on improvement and solving problems, as opposed to looking at weaknesses and deficiencies.

Peak experiences.

Maslow described certain unique moments in time when humans are able to have peak experiences. In religious contexts, people might describe these as “mystical experiences”. These rare events have a profound impact on people. He was able to note that these experiences come and go rather quickly.

Bibliography

Hoffman, Edward (1999). The Right to be Human: A Biography of Abraham Maslow. New York, NY: McGraw Hill.

Maslow, A.H. (1943). A Theory of Human Motivation. Psychological Review, 50, 370–396.

Maslow, A.H. (1964). Religions, Values and Peak-experiences. Columbus, OH: Ohio State University Press.

Maslow, A.H. (1987). Motivation and Personality. (3rd ed.). New York, NY: Harper & Row.

Maslow, A.H. (1999). Towards a Psychology of Being. (3rd ed.). New York, NY: John Wiley & Sons.