This is Abra­ham Maslow’s Hier­ar­chy of Human Needs. I think it’s a mar­velous approach to self-improvement. It was a hand­out in my Literature-based Research class, but I’ve learned that it embod­ies the human­ist school of psy­chol­ogy, which Maslow founded.

1. Phys­i­o­log­i­cal: the need to sat­isfy hunger, thirst, and other bod­ily preoccupations.
2. Safety/security: the need to be out of danger.
3. Belong­ing­ness: the need for affil­i­a­tion with oth­ers, a sense of being loved or accepted.
4. Esteem: the need to gain approval and recognition.
5. Cog­ni­tive: the need to know, to under­stand, to explore
6. Aes­thetic: the need for sym­me­try, order and beauty.
7. Self-actualization: the need to expe­ri­ence self ful­fill­ment, to real­ize one’s full poten­tial. The self actu­al­iz­ing per­son is one who is:
   • Not afraid of the unknown and can tol­er­ate doubt, uncer­tainty, and ten­ta­tive­ness that accom­pany the per­cep­tion of the new and unfamiliar.
   • Not ashamed of his/her human nature with its short­com­ings, imper­fec­tions, frail­ties, and weaknesses.
   • Not ham­pered by con­ven­tions but does not flout con­ven­tions merely for the sake of doing so.
   • Missioned-oriented on the basis of an unco­erced sense of respon­si­bil­ity, duty, or obligation.
   • Respect­ful of oth­ers and tries to under­stand their perspectives.
   • Attuned to the oppor­tu­ni­ties of soli­tude and pri­vacy as well as of social interaction.
   • Fully con­scious of per­sonal respon­si­bil­ity for actions and for growth, not blam­ing oth­ers or charg­ing oth­ers with the task motivation.
   • In awe of the won­der of the every­day world and of life’s lim­it­less possibilities.
   • Pos­sessed of a deep and uncon­di­tional empa­thy for human beings in general.
   • Hum­ble in his/her recog­ni­tion of what he/she knows in com­par­i­son to what could be known and acknowl­edges oth­ers as teach­ers, respect­ing every­one as a poten­tial con­trib­u­tor to his/her knowledge.
   • Highly eth­i­cal and at least intu­itively aware of Kant’s famous cat­e­gor­i­cal imper­a­tive, which charges us to “Act only accord­ing to prin­ci­ples which we can will also to be uni­ver­sal laws.”
   • Philo­soph­i­cal and pos­sessed of an unhos­tile sense of humor
   • Vision­ary but not inclined to impose his/her beliefs on others.
   • Alive!
8. Self-transcendence: the need to con­nect to some­thing beyond the self and to move toward a mean­ing­ful self­less­ness through that connectedness.