Keys to Success: Self Actualization through Intrinsic Motivation

Keys to Success: Self Actualization through Intrinsic Motivation

Credit to Reader’s Digest

Ben Cervelloni

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Article One: Definition of Success To become successful, a person must reach self actualization through intrinsic motivation. Abraham Maslow, a famous psychologist in the nineteenth century, created Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. The hierarchy consisted of a five level pyramid starting with physiological needs and then moving up with safety needs, belongingness and loving needs, esteem needs, and then finally self actualization (Mcleod). Physiological needs involve food, water, and shelter whereas safety needs involve a person living in a safe area and not fearing for their lives every day. Thirdly, belonging and loving needs involves relationships with family, friends, and significant others. On the fourth level of esteem needs, a person finds self respect and appreciation. Lastly, a person can attain self actualization which means the person found a strong purpose in life.

According to Maslow, certain needs must become accomplished first before satisfying other needs. For example, to achieve belonging and loving needs, a person must have physiological and safety needs first. Saying this, when a person starts to climb the pyramid and satisfy needs, their motivation decreases. For instance, if a person eats well, feels safe and loves others, they will find it more difficult to carry out the esteem needs. This means a person must channel intrinsic motivation, meaning they will become motivated by themselves without external awards or accolades. Developing intrinsic motivation becomes difficult, as people often become lazy and tired. A person must delay gratification, meaning they cannot take immediate awards, to practice intrinsic motivation and progress through the five levels of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs.

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With intrinsic motivation however, people young and old can arrive at the highest level of self actualization. In Maslow’s words, self actualization “is to become everything one is capable of becoming” (Mcleod). This involves an individual finding something bigger than themselves. Self Actualization can come from starting a family, finding a loved one, or completing an important job.

According to Kendra Cherry, a psychologist from A Very Well Mind People Development Program, people who gain self actualization do not run away from problems, but instead attack them. Instead of procrastinating or hoping someone else solves the problem, they just do it themselves. With each problem solved, their confidence soars resulting in an increase in intrinsic motivation. They also have a sense of humor making them popular among peers, but enjoy solitude and privacy. Most importantly, they remain independent and do not follow the normal path, but come up with creative ideas to become successful (Cherry). With intrinsic motivation leading the way through each level of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, a person can fulfill success within family, friends, or a job. Once an individual manages self actualization, they have truly become successful in life.

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Credit to HRBS Blog

Article Two Teachers provide a perfect example of what it takes to become successful through intrinsic motivation. The education profession creates a solid income that allows teachers to pay for their physiological needs and their safety. The average high school teacher in the United States makes 59,170 dollars a year and an unemployment rate of eight percent (High School Teachers). Teachers can afford food, a car, and a home allowing them to focus on their job. With the middle class salary, teachers do not fear for their life allowing them to cover the safety needs in Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. Furthermore, teaching gives a sense of belonging and love, as a teacher often mirrors a student’s third parent throughout the school year. In elementary schools, teachers can spend up to seven hours with students a day. As for high school teachers, they only see students once or twice a day but can teach students different classes for multiple years

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throughout high school. On top of that, many teachers also coach sports or run extra curricular events which leads to even more time spent together. Teachers who coach and oversee extracurricular activities get to see students in different environments, whether a team, student council, or speech and debate. Because of the frequent time spent together, strong relationships bloom between teachers and students, allowing a teacher to feel a sense of belonging. However, the job still takes intrinsic motivation as teachers receive few external awards for their work.

Teachers expectations reach high levels, such as satisfying school administrators and students scoring adequate on tests. If these expectations do not get completed, it results in angry students and upset parents who often complain to principal resulting in teachers getting in trouble. This creates a high pressure work environment, where success cannot come with many mistakes.

Saying this, when teachers do their job well and see students learn and grow, they feel high levels of esteem. Teachers confidence boost when students succeed, resulting in an improved self esteem and a gain of self respect. According to the U.S Department of Education, ninety five percent of public teachers have a high job satisfaction rate while teachers who work at a public school have a ninety percent satisfaction rate (U.S Department of Education). This correlates directly with the students, as more private school students take school and grades more seriously than public school students. Either way, at least nine of ten teachers enjoy their job no matter where they teach. With a high job satisfaction, many teachers experience self actualization.

Educators love the sense of accomplishment when a student understands a difficult concept, or finds a new love in a subject. Teachers find a purpose bigger themselves when they create a spark for students leading them to go to college and find a job.

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Advice Column Today, we will explore how to accomplish success! To find success, it requires intrinsic motivation and the five levels of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs into your personality. Achieving the final level, self actualization, proves difficult as a person must find their purpose in life.

Starting with the physiological level, a person must find enough food, water, and shelter to live a healthy life. If you’re eating, drinking, and have a home, congratulations you get to move up to the second level! If not, create a budget so you can afford the necessities of life. Do not splurge on top of the line clothing, or the newest phone, but buy what you need to live comfortably!

Moving on, a person needs to live safely to conquer the second level of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. This involves living in a low crime neighborhood where you do not need to

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fear for your life everyday. If you happen to live in a high crime neighborhood and unable to move, buy locks for your doors and windows so you will always have a safe place to stay.

The next level of love and belonging starts to get more complicated. This level involves you making strong relationships with friends and family for your entire life. It does not matter if you have twenty friends, or just one, as long as feel like you belong you have conquered this level! If you do not feel like this, it will take some effort. You must become intrinsically motivated, meaning you complete actions for yourself, with no external award or advantage. To feel loved, you must love others. Laugh with people, tell stories, make plans! Once you put yourself out there, the feeling of belonging will come along too.

To execute the fourth level on Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, a person must create a feeling of esteem. This goes even farther than belonging, as it involves self respect and a love for yourself along with others. If you feel confident about yourself everyday, knowing you will make it the best day possible, you have surpassed the fourth level. If not, do not worry! Self respect comes with time, allowing you to grow as a person as you see yourself succeed in areas and also fail miserably. You know you have reached the fourth level when you respect yourself no matter what outcome, whether a certain event results in a win or a loss.

Lastly for a person to finish all five levels of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, they must find self actualization. This goes beyond yourself and finding a purpose in the world. Self actualization can revolve around starting a family or working your dream job! Whatever it involves, intrinsic motivation and happiness comes easily when you partake.

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Credit to Business Matters

Movie Reviews The movies “Hot Rod” and “Jordan Rides the Bus” both contain stories of success. Both characters in the film use intrinsic motivation and the Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs to achieve success.

In “Hot Rod” Rod Kimble, a failing yet lovable stuntman, performs stunts at local venues (Hot Rod). However, he must make the biggest jump of his life when his step father must undergo heart surgery and his family does not have the money to pay for it. To raise the money, Rod decides to jump fifteen buses. As his team prepares for the big jump, he meets Denise who joins the stunt crew and they fall in love. In the end, Rod Kimble raises enough money to save his step father.

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In the comedy film, viewers experience how Rod Kimble climbed Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. In the beginning Rod possesses the physiological and safety needs as his middle class family lives in a safe neighborhood. It also comes clear Rod surpassed the third level of belonging as he spends time with his stunt crew everyday. Kimble achieves the esteem level by raising money to save his step father’s life. Done by his strong intrinsic motivation, he trained every day to improve his speed, stamina and agility. Lastly, Kimble accomplishes self actualization at the end of the movie. Denise falls in love with him, his step father gains back his health, and Rod Kimble finally feels happy and accomplished.

Credit to CinemaBlend

In “Jordan Rides the Bus” the documentary explores Michael Jordan’s professional baseball career (Jordan Rides the Bus). After three straight NBA Finals appearances, Jordan quit basketball to play baseball with the Chicago White Sox.

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Jordan encompasses the first two levels on the pyramid as his million dollar salary allows him to live healthy and safely. His transition from basketball to baseball identifies how he struggled with the level of “belonging” as he played the best basketball the world has ever seen.

Instead of continuing his basketball career, he dreamed of playing baseball. Along with the improved sense of belonging while playing baseball, Jordan surpassed the fourth level of “Esteem” as he dedicated his baseball career to his father. His father, who died in 1993, always wanted Michael to play baseball. Once he passed, Jordan went onto something bigger than himself to make his father proud. Lastly, Jordan reached self actualization through his intrinsic motivation. He gathered the courage to let go of basketball, and play something that made him truly happy: baseball.

Credit to Line Up Forms I preferred Hot Rod over all other movies due to its comedy and underlying meanings.

Even though Rod presents himself as weird, and his friends even weirder, he constantly finds

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happiness and does what he loves no matter what anyone else says. I think more people can learn from Rod, by not worrying about what others think.

Interview Brittany Anderson, a science teacher at Chagrin Falls High School, illustrates the definition of success inside and outside the classroom. As a Biology and AP Environmental Science teacher, basketball and track coach, and ChaGreen Club Advisor, Anderson constantly stays busy with students.

In her sophomore year of college at Grove City College, she decided to pursue a career in teaching, instead of an orthopedic surgeon like her father. Anderson made the change due to the fact she wanted to work one on one with more people, and she felt she could make a bigger impact in a school rather than a doctor’s office. Many people questioned her on the decision, and reminded her of the “demanding work, crazy hours, and minimal pay.” However, she became the newest Chagrin Falls AP Environmental Science teacher after Pat Wibel retired.

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Ten years later, Anderson continues to provide hard work and enthusiasm at Chagrin Falls High School. Unlike other teachers, Anderson spends many of her free hours spreading her love for the environment with her students. Outings include nature walks, outdoor labs, and recycling which all students enjoy. “This is where you live! If you want it to be a great place you have to make a positive impact on it” preached Anderson. Along with saving the environment, the time outside interacting with students helped Anderson know them better than just their test taking ability. “You get to see what makes them tick and what their genuine interests are” explained Anderson. She then can apply what she learns to the classroom, improving a student’s ability to learn. Taking students out in the environment to experience nature also allows a relaxing learning environment, resulting in students liking the class even more.

On top of spending time with her students, Anderson constantly updates them on the latest biology and environmental science news through twitter. “I’m just obnoxious on twitter” Anderson said bluntly. The tweets allow students interested in environmental science or biology to delve deeper into topics learned in class, or discover new ones outside of the curriculum.

Brittany Anderson does not get showered with awards, nor does she make millions of dollars, but she successfully encompasses the traits of a successful individual. Intrinsically motivated, she proves to students first hand how the subjects she teaches apply to the “real world.” Anderson does not want students to worry about “The grade. The grade. The grade.”

Even though she stresses the importance of grades, Anderson encourages students to take new paths and “pursue the things you want to pursue.” Anderson reflects a perfect example of this, as in college she changed her major to make herself happy, not involving herself with external factors with such as money.

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Credit to In Vera Verita Back Cover

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Ben Cervelloni with his loving mother celebrating the senior year cross country season.

During the winter of freshman year, Ben Cervelloni joined speech and debate. He went to the practices, memorized my speech, and even went to individual coaching sessions. In the first tournament, Cervelloni participated in humorous interpretation and finished last place Then, he quit. Instead of speech, Cervelloni tried out and made the freshman basketball team.

The basketball season came and went, and Cervelloni did not feel satisfied with the experience. As the next winter rolled around, he decided not to do basketball but join speech and debate once again.This time however, Cervelloni would do duo interpretation with a friend. Like his freshman year, he worked hard to memorize a speech but did not expect to have any success.

To Cervelloni’s surprise however, he won fourth place at his first tournament. As the season progressed, the duo team frequently finished as one of the top six teams at the weekly tournaments. They even won a tournament, and finished the season at the state tournament.

Sadly, Cervelloni and his partner were severely outmatched as they finished forty sixth out of fifty five teams. Saying this, no one expected Cervelloni to ever touch success.

As junior year speech and debate season began, Cervelloni became intrinsically motivated to improve from the year before. He and his partner found one of the most individualistic and funniest script. During the season, they would perform “Brothers Solomon” the story of two awkward brothers who wanted to fulfill their father’s dying wish of meeting a grandson. The judges loved it, as they continued to win tournament after tournament, including the national qualifiers. As a result, Cervelloni competed in Birmingham, Alabama where he surrounded himself by the best speech and debaters in the nation. As for the state competition, Cervelloni vowed to improve from last year, not wanting to come in the bottom portion of the

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standings. The duo slowly made their way into the quarterfinals, then semi finals, and then finals.

In the final round, Cervelloni and his partner performed their speech in front of one hundred spectators. As the award ceremony came to a close, the duo ended up moving up forty four spots from the year before, finishing second in the state.

Now, a senior and a co-captain of the interpretation squad, Cervelloni helped all the new speech and debaters. He no longer dreamed to win state or go to the national tournament again, but to help others become successful just like he did. This involves helping them find a strong script, developing characters, and giving them the confidence to be a strong public speaker.

Because Cervelloni knew if a freshman basketball bench warmer can win at speech and debate, the new freshman and sophomores can too.

Works Cited Cherry, Kendra. “9 Characteristics of Self-Actualized People.” ​Verywell Mind​, 30 Nov. 2017, www.verywellmind.com/characteristics-of-self-actualized-people-2795963.

“High School Teachers.” ​U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics​, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 13 Apr. 2018, www.bls.gov/ooh/education-training-and-library/high-school-teachers.htm.

“Hot Rod (2007).” ​IMDb​, IMDb.com, www.imdb.com/title/tt0787475/.

“Jordan Rides the Bus - ESPN Films: 30 for 30.” ​ESPN​, ESPN Internet Ventures, www.espn.com/30for30/film?page=jordan-rides-the-bus.

Mcleod, Saul. “Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs.” ​Simply Psychology​, Simply Psychology, 2017, www.simplypsychology.org/maslow.html.

U.S Department of Education. “Teacher Job Satisfaction.” ​Data Point​, June 2016.