🧠 The Real Psychology of Your Desires
Like Oprah Winfrey, what do we want? No, like really, what do we REALLY want?
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"It is not in the pursuit of happiness that we find fulfillment, it is in the happiness of pursuit."
- Denis Waitley
The Supreme Desire: What Everyone Truly Wants
What do you want most in life?
Is it success, happiness, love, or something deeper?
Understanding your deepest desires can unlock the key to becoming more desirable to others and living a fulfilling life. Let's explore this concept through the lens of Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs and modern stories and examples that shows how aligning with these desires can transform our relationships and our lives.
Imagine achieving your biggest dream, only to realize it doesn't bring you the happiness you expected.
This scenario happens more often than you'd think.
Why?
Because fulfilling surface-level desires often leaves deeper needs unmet. Let's dive into what people truly want and how understanding these desires can make you more appealing and influential.
We'll explore this topic through 3 acts:
The Foundations of Human Desire
Recognizing The Power of Aligning with Deep Desires
5 Ways To Applying These Insights Into Your Life to Enhance Your Desirability
Many people struggle with pursuing superficial goals that leave deeper needs unfulfilled, leading them to dissatisfaction and a lack of genuine connections. And while many believe success and material wealth bring happiness, we'll reveal the deeper, often overlooked needs that truly drive fulfillment and desirability.
Understanding the Hierarchy of Needs
Act 1: The Foundations of Human Desire
Abraham Maslow's hierarchy of needs is a psychological theory that categorizes human needs into 5 levels: physiological, safety, love and belonging, esteem, and self-actualization. The theory suggests that basic needs must be met before higher-level desires can be fulfilled.
For example, think of an entrepreneur working tirelessly to build a successful business.
Initially, their focus might be on physiological and safety needs, such as financial stability and security. As they achieve these, they begin to seek love and belonging through relationships and community.
Act 2: The Power of Aligning with Deep Desires
Understanding and aligning with these deeper desires can transform how others perceive and connect with you.
Consider Oprah Winfrey, who, despite her immense success, has always emphasized the importance of self-actualization and helping others reach their full potential. Her ability to connect with people's deeper needs for love, belonging, and personal growth has made her one of the most influential figures in the world.
A modern example is Marie Kondo, whose philosophy of tidying up isn't just about cleaning but about finding joy and fulfillment.
By aligning her message with the deeper desires for simplicity and happiness, she has built a global cult, I mean following *cough*. Marie Kondo’s method, known as the KonMari Method, encourages people to keep only those items that "spark joy."
This approach resonates deeply with people’s intrinsic desire for simplicity and happiness. Instead of merely decluttering, Kondo helps people create living spaces that reflect their true selves, leading to greater personal satisfaction and harmony.
The success of her books, such as "The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up," and her popular Netflix series, "Tidying Up with Marie Kondo," demonstrates how deeply her message has resonated globally.
People aren't just learning to organize their homes; they're learning to align their living environments with their inner values and desires, which brings a profound sense of fulfillment and joy.
Act 3: Applying These Insights to Enhance Your Desirability
So, how can you apply these insights into your own life to become more desirable to others?
1. Address Basic Needs:
Ensure your own physiological and safety needs are met. This stability provides a foundation for connecting with others on deeper levels.
2. Cultivate Genuine Relationships:
Focus on building authentic connections that fulfill love and belonging needs. Show genuine interest in others and create a supportive community.
3. Boost Self-Esteem:
Recognize and appreciate your achievements and strengths. Encourage and uplift others, helping them recognize their own value.
4. Pursue Self-Actualization:
Strive for personal growth and fulfillment. Share your journey with others, inspiring them to pursue their own paths to self-actualization.
Reflecting on Your Own Desires
Take a moment to reflect on your own desires:
What drives you?
Are your actions aligned with your deepest needs?
Understanding these motivations can help you make more fulfilling choices and connect with others more meaningfully.
Wrapping it up
In short, by understanding and aligning with the deeper desires outlined in Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs, you can make yourself more desirable and influential :)
And by focusing on fulfilling these needs for yourself and others, you create stronger, more genuine connections and a more fulfilling life. Win-win.
With that, I leave you with this quote:
"Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it."
- Rumi
Thank you for reading!
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Appreciate you so so much,
sol 😌
See you guys in my next upcoming essay where we talk about:
[A poem on Emotional Intelligence]
I think Ralph Waldo Emerson sums it up nicely:
It’s not the Destination; It’s the journey.
When we reach our destination or goals, we often start looking for the next thing immediately, as the journey is more fun than the destination.
“The journey is what brings us happiness, not the destination” - Dan Millman
Love this and it’s something I think about a lot. So often people achieve a goal at the expense of something else that really matters, like their family or health, and find that the cost outweighed the benefit. I think it’s important to have balanced goals, that it goals in multiple areas of life, to ensure desire and effort is appropriately balanced. I also think it’s important for goals to align with core values, and most of all, the core of who you are and how you are meant to express yourself. I think we all have a seed of potential inside of us and our job is to cultivate that seed, which has its own purpose and desires. The trouble is too often we prioritize the desire for certain outcomes over the desire for an authentic pathway, and if we’re not traveling the authentic path, we won’t find happiness. It’s cliche but life really is all about the journey and I always have to remind myself that results are more an accumulation of consistent actions rather than something to strive for in themselves.