The One Thing Keeping You From Thriving (and how to fix it)

 

My paternal grandfather, Ohan Kayaian, passed away when I was just 3 months old. I have no memories of him—just a faded photograph of a very old man holding a tiny little baby. So everything I know about “Pa” I know from stories my dad would share about him. 

There’s one that he repeated more often than the others. “My Pa always said” it would begin. “That if your family was healthy, and you had a roof over your head, food to eat, and no one was trying to kill you, you had everything.” 

And according to Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, you did have everything—at least for his first 2 tiers–with physiological and safety needs being met. Thanks to the strength and resilience of my grandparents surviving the Armenian massacre in Turkey and being marched out of their ancestral homes through the desert, thanks to the Jordanian refugee camps that kept them safe and alive until they could settle elsewhere, and thanks to the United States who took them in as immigrants and gave them jobs and a chance at stability, and thanks to the incredible sense of community they found with their neighbors and fellow displaced Armenians, they made it all the way to Tier 3: family, friendships, a sense of connection and belonging. 

 

 

What Does Maslow Have to Do With All This?

And that’s about where things stopped. For those of you unfamiliar with the work of Psychologist Abraham Maslow’s work, he proposed that there are different stages of growth in human development and that people are most motivated by the desire to fulfill their needs in the next tier up. 

Shaped like a pyramid, The bottom tier is physiological needs—air, water, food, sleep, shelter, heat, clothes–basic survival stuff. And the stuff that my grandparents were not taking for granted in 1915. 

The next tier up is safety needs–Health, personal safety, emotional safety, and financial safety. These are the things they were able to find once they made it safely to the United States. After that comes a sense of belonging and love: intimacy, friendships, community, etc. And then comes esteem needs: Respect, a sense of accomplishment or prestige

And then, in the highest tier (and this is the simplified version of the pyramid) is self-actualization. This tier includes the fulfillment of one’s potential, having creative pursuits, and reaching aesthetic goals. 

So many creative people exist vocationally in the 4th or even 5th tier, but because they are struggling with financial or emotional safety, everything feels like a mess. Often they aren’t sure where that dissonance is coming from. They feel like they should be happy, but they’re not. The reason, most likely, is that there is some need in a lower tier that hasn’t been met yet. It’s the thing that is keeping them from fully thriving. 

The idea of striving towards self-actualization has come to be one of those typical American ideals. It’s not enough for us just to “Be”. We want to thrive.  My friends and family members outside of the US love to make fun of us Americans for being so ambitious, but I’ve noticed that they generally sit there poking fun at us from their beautiful houses in the beautiful countryside, hosting summer parties for large groups of friends and family members under the bougainvillea-covered pergolas with platters of perfectly cooked food made from the freshest of ingredients. They’ve just already made it to where we want to go! 

And on the other side of that coin, there are people all over the world who are desperately trying to survive. Like my grandparents, their lives are under threat every single day. There is no platter of perfectly cooked food. There might not even be any food. 

And so, with their daily realities heavy in my heart, it is with a deep appreciation for what my grandparents endured that I even have a CHANCE at thriving. They crawled (literally) their way up to that third tier so that I might have a chance at the higher tiers. 

There’s a tagline in my podcast intro that says we’re here to talk about how you can Thrive, instead of merely Survive, and that’s what we’re going to talk about today. 

 

What Does it Mean to Thrive?

To me, the idea of thriving means to get oneself into those upper tiers, and we can’t fully BE in those upper tiers until we’ve fulfilled the basic human needs in the lower tiers. 

When clients come to me feeling tremendous anxiety about their career, it’s usually because they don’t yet have financial security. Maybe they’re doing great work, but not getting paid enough, or maybe they’re spending beyond their means, but either way, that “looks fancy on paper” career isn’t going to feel very thrivy if they are buried in credit card debt. Deep down, they don’t feel safe. 

More often than not, though, people who work with me are trying to get up into that next tier. To go from happy and secure and loved to respected and admired by their peers. Or from respected and admired up to Creative Self-Actualization and the fulfillment of their potential. While things, on the surface, are perfectly fine, they know in their hearts that they have more to give, and they want help getting there. 

I think it’s human nature to want to reach upward. To grow, to transform, to be the best version of ourselves. The question is how can we all Thrive a little bit more this year?  What does that take? And how does one start? 

We start by looking at all of those tiers and making sure we have what we need from each tier. Because if something is lacking, it’s going to stand in our way. 

 

 

Tier One: Physiological Needs

Do you have food, shelter, heat, water, and clothes? No? Then that’s where we start. Let’s find some resources that can help you get on your feet. (or, off your feet and into a warm bed.) Your plan for this year might be to find a place to live, and to figure out how you can create or increase your income. Maybe that’s by doing some odd jobs, maybe it’s working at Starbucks. We just want to get your physiological needs met. 

 

Tier Two: A Sense of Safety

Do you have physical, emotional, and financial security? Are you healthy? No? Okay, let’s address it. What do you need? A new place to live? A restraining order? A mental health professional? To pay off your debts? How much more do you need? Do you need to start exercising? To see a doctor? To start eating better? Your focus this fall should be to address those issues and fulfill that human need for safety and security.

 

Tier Three: Love and Connection 

Do you have a sense of community support? Connection with others? Love? Friendships? Intimacy (which, btw, can mean different things to different people.) No? Then let’s work this year on building that. Join a group of like-minded people–a sports team, a local community group, a church, synagogue, mosque, or temple, hell, start a book club! Put yourself out there and meet people. The feeling of belonging and connection is key to living a long and healthy life. It’s one of the main findings of research done on Blue zones–the places around the world with the highest number of people living well over the age of 80. 

Do you already have that strong sense of community, love, and belonging? Okay, we can move on. 

 

Tier Four: Esteem Needs

Do you have a sense of accomplishment, prestige, and the respect you’d like from your peers? No? Then that is where you put your focus on this year. What would you like to accomplish? How can you make a bigger (or better) impact with your work? What kind of project would bring you the prestige you want? And how can you work to earn respect from your peers? That’s going to be your project for this year. For a lot of creatives, this stems from PR and visibility. You’re putting out great work that you believe in, but no one seems to be noticing. That feels awful. Make this the year you tackle your visibility goals and gain some traction in that area. 

 

Tier Five: Self-Actualization

Do you have all of the above in place already? Awesome. Now it’s time for you to start working on the 5th tier.  According to Maslow, the 5th tier is all about self-actualization, and moves from a need for cognitive achievement—the pursuit of creative projects and goals (something most people here have long been working on—even without having earlier stages solidified) followed by a desire for greater aesthetics—which can be anything from having the freedom and desire to appreciate the beauty of nature to the desire to improve one’s home or environment to wanting to improve one’s appearance. It can be the platters of gorgeous food served under the bougainvillea-covered pergola.  And following that is what he calls “true self-actualization” the desire to reach your full potential in all areas of your life.  

 

How Do We Get There?

So to answer the question, “How do we set out to Thrive?” I’d say it depends on where you’re starting from, and that is going to be different for everyone. We all have something different that we need to work on before we can feel fully ready for the next tier–not that you can’t work on beautifying your home (Tier 5) while you’re working on building a sense of Community (Tier 3), but you might find yourself sitting alone in your beautiful house wondering why you’re still so unhappy and unfulfilled. 

The trick is to identify the one thing that is holding you back. That need– and it could be 2-3 tiers below you–that you never quite resolved. Spending some time this year improving that area would be an incredibly good investment of your time and energy, and could be just the game-changer you’ve been searching for. It will unlock everything else. 

Those of you who have been around for a while know that each year, I run a free multi-day event that I call Thrive Fest. Thrive Fests have looked different throughout the years. Sometimes it’s a month of small daily tasks. Sometimes it’s a 4-Day challenge, and sometimes it’s been a combination of the two. 

I’m excited to announce this year’s Thrive Fest, which will be taking place from Tuesday, September 17th, through Friday, September 20th. Over those 4 days, we’ll be identifying which tier we’re currently in, which one we’re trying to move towards, and what is getting us stuck. And I’ll show you ways to get unstuck, and how to make a plan to truly thrive this year. 

Again, everyone will be coming in at a different tier. You might need to make a plan to: 

• Get your taxes straightened out
• Negotiate a raise or a Work-from-home arrangement
• Learn how to invest
• Grow your audience or your business ( and your income!)
• Get that promotion (or that first job)
• Get fit and healthy once and for all
• Actually write that book you’ve been thinking about for ages (I’ve got some fresh tips on that one!) 
• Fix up your house, or start that garden you’ve been dreaming about. 
• Build a stronger sense of community, work on your marriage, or strengthen the bonds you have with your friends. 

Whatever it is, wherever you’re starting, I can promise you that after 4 days, you will already be on your way, and you’ll already see a difference in your life.  Self-actualization is within reach for all of us. We just need to be willing to get ourselves there. 

I hope you’ll join me, and hundreds of other people in the TFTL community for this year’s Thrive Fest, and I hope you’ll bring your friends.  Again–it’s free, it’s online (just 45 minutes each day), and if you can’t be there live, there will be recordings and emails with each day’s prompts. I’ll put the registration link in the show notes and you can find it on my Instagram profile as well (oh–and please come and join me over there! I’d love to meet you)

Here’s to Thriving more this year! See you soon. 

Kate

P.S. Save your spot for Thrive Fest ’24 right here!