The Four Things Everyone Wants
Published on 4 Jun 2007 at 11:38 am.
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Filed under Business Development, Feature Articles, Personal Development Strategies, Spirituality & Inspiration.
I receive a newsletter from Michael Neill. He’s the author of ‘You Can Have What You Want’ .
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1401911838/geniuscatalys-20
I really enjoy what he writes and often reprint his material.
In this week’s email he wrote about the Four Things Everyone Wants. I loved what he wrote and he always includes a call to action (like me!). So, read on and enjoy!
“Unfulfilled needs motivate.”
-Abraham Maslow
Most people are familiar with Abraham Maslow’s “hierarchy of needs” - the idea that there are a set of “needs” that we all share, and that each one is predicated on the fulfillment of the one before.
A version of Maslow’s hierarchy is as follows:
1. Physiological Survival
2. Safety and security
3. Love, affection, and belonging
4. Esteem, achievement, and recognition
5. To know, to understand, and to explore 6. Symmetry, order, and beauty 7. Self-actualization and self-fulfillment 8. Transcendence
In the mid 1950’s, William J. Reilly, founder and director of the Institute for Straight Thinking (a process for integrating scientific thought into everyday life) developed a simpler four part model to encompass the universal desires of people living within our modern culture.
What follows are my own interpretations of Reilly’s four universal wants and some thoughts on applying them in your own life as they relate to both goal setting and motivation.
Like Maslow’s “needs”, Reilly’s “wants” represent those things in life that generally motivate by lack - that is, we tend to focus on them more or less in relation to how much of them we currently have in our lives.
Unlike Maslow, Reilly’s wants are not hierarchical but balanced - the ideal is not to transcend each one and move on to the next but rather to create an ongoing balance and harmony between the four.
1. Money
“The trick to money is having some.” -Stuart Wilde
In over a decade of consulting, training, and coaching, I have come across only one person who appeared to be genuinely unconcerned with money. As she had lots of it, however, we’ll put her to one side and deal with the rest of us!
If we purpose-fully pursue money as a part of our overall life plan, it can be an endlessly enriching source of freedom and opportunity. If we attempt to ignore the role of money in our lives or pretend that money does not matter to us, we potentially doom ourselves to a life of self-righteous lack and struggle.
2. Love
“Love cures people - the ones who receive love and the ones who give it, too.” -Karl Menninger
Whether you want to be loved by God or the cute little red headed girl next door, the desire to love and be loved is one of the great driving forces in the universe. By consciously and actively focusing on love, we increase its presence in our lives.
3. Ego Food
“The only way to keep feeding your ego is to continue to follow interesting activities…that give you a feeling of self-importance and self-respect as long as you live.”
-William J. Reilly
The Webster’s definition of ego is as follows:
ego (noun)
[New Latin, from Latin, I -- more at I]
First appeared 1789
1 : the self esp. as contrasted with another self or the world
While various Eastern religions extoll the virtues of a loss of self and encourage the “death” of the ego, both Western and Oceanic cultures celebrate the self, particularly in encouraging its authentic expression within the larger whole. Some Native American cultures use the metaphor that each person’s life is a unique song, and that if even one person fails to live their life authentically, the universal harmony is disrupted.
4. Health
“It amazes me how many people think of health only in terms of not being sick, when there is a great range of health beyond that… Ultimately, the only sensible way to define health is by how good you feel.”-Serge Kahili King
As with each of the four universal wants, being healthy is less the purpose of one’s life than a prerequisite to having a full and fulfilling life. True health encompasses not only the physical but the mental and emotional as well.
Today’s Experiment:
1. Make a list of all the things you want (or use a list of your current goals). Next to each item on the list, write down whether your primary motivation is money, love, ego food, health, or something else.
2. Give yourself marks out of ten for how fulfilled you are in each of the four areas. Remember, whichever of your wants/needs is currently most unfulfilled will wind up motivating your behavior, consciously or unconsciously.
3. Divide a piece of paper into four rows and two columns. Label each row with one of the four universal wants - money, love, ego food, and health. Label the left hand column “What I’ve Got”, and the right hand column “What I want”.
4. Fill in the blanks! This is an excellent way of generating a simple, intrinsically fulfilling list of projects and goals to work on, as well as providing you with a visual “map” of where you are out of balance in your life as it stands.
Have fun, learn heaps, make money, live love, get healthy food for your ego, and positively supercharge your health!
This newsletter and all content within it is (c)2007 Michael Neill and Genius Catalyst Inc. except where otherwise noted.http://www.geniuscatalyst.com
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