Motivation (Part 2): What Motivates Kirstie Alley?

Let's see if we can answer the question by examining my personal theory and how I have applied it to my diet at this juncture of my life.

Motivation, as defined in Wikipedia (God, I hope someone didn't edit it to say something stupid), is "the set of reasons that determines one to engage in a particular behavior." That understood, the question becomes "what forms the basis for the 'reasons?" To understand the 'reasons' we must go back to something that, at some point in time, we have all been exposed to...whether it was in High School Biology, Psych 101, or some type of workplace training...and that is Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs. Ugggghhhhh!! I can just hear the collective groan.

Maslow's theory, which we have all come to widely respect, is that we humans fill and fulfill our most basic needs in a specific order. That order is based on the pyramid above. We fill the pyramid from the bottom up. We start with our Basic Physiological Needs (survival). We fill those needs first. Once we feel that those needs are met, we move on. Safety Needs, Social Needs, Esteem Needs and then we can focus on Self-Actualization. For most of us, we live our lives filling the levels in the middle of the pyramid. Some people are rare and get to the top two levels. There is a very tiny group that actually make it all the way to the top. The theory (and one I happen to agree with) is that if one of us has a deficiency in a lower level, it must be filled before we can further advance. The theory also says that if you have three levels filled and are working on something that fills a level four need, but then have something happen to you that upsets the lower level needs, you will stop the level four work to go back and back fill the lower level need and then have to return to level four. This theory of Maslow's is ageless and valuable.

As I read the many professional interpretations of Maslow, I continued to run into the same conflict. That conflict was that the writers in each case interpreted Maslow's levels with their own definition of what makes up each level. In the most basic example, 'Career Success' is most often placed at the Esteem Level by the social scientists who study Maslow. It is commonly held by them that a person's need for that success usually satiates the Esteem Level in that it typically brings with it the fulfillment of the Respect and Achievement need. The question I had was, "what if, for whatever reason (upbringing, dire social situations, etc.) a person puts Career Success at a different level?" If a person places Career Success at the Safety Need level, or they classify it as a 'must have' for their definition of personal Safety, they will approach fulfilling that need differently.

The uniqueness of every human being and the diversity of upbringing and experiences means that we build our pyramids differently. The items in my life that constitute my Esteem level are different from the next person's. If we try to interpret someone's motive and behavior using OUR OWN pyramid, we invariably end up in confusion and it can often result in conflict. The key, therefore, to understanding anyone and their motives, is to understand the person's personal pyramid of needs. Once you know that, their behavior makes sense and forms a pattern. Try to evaluate their behavior using YOUR pyramid, and their behavior looks erratic and confusing to you...because it is! It violates your own pattern of needs.

So I began to look at this as it relates to Dieting and Physical Fitness (DPF). Why can some people do this well and yet others be so poor at it? Also, why have I had success in my weight loss but not in keeping it off? The answer lies in where we place this DPF part of our lives on our personal hierarchy of needs pyramid.

I will tell you that for the longest time, I put DPF in the category of Esteem Needs. Why? Let's cover the lower levels first. I had all my Level One needs met without needing my DPF to be perfect. My Level Two needs of Safety and Security were not viewed by me as being jeopardized by being fat or thin. All those needs were met also. My Level Three Social Needs were also being met. I am happily married with a great family. No one socially, that I know of, was accepting me or rejecting me because I was a very big person. Everyone told me that I wasn't really THAT big and people accepted me for who I was. I also had the ability to laugh about my size and didn't take offense if people said I was big, fat, heavy...whatever. My Social Needs were filled without the need for my DPF to be perfect. I had, at that point in my life, decided to put my DPF issues on Level Four, the Esteem Level.

My personal reasons for putting DPF on Level Four were based on some observations that I had in my personal life. I noticed that many times in my life, I had tried to obtain jobs and move to a higher level of career status. The ONLY times I had ever been hired and obtained the next level successfully, was when I was thin. When I was large, I never got the job. Not once. Based on this, I had coupled my DPF with Career Success. Let me state for the record that in the last 3 to 4 years, I have been relatively happy with my current job. That said, I think I am ready to try some new things in my life. The fact that I am pretty happy and feel somewhat secure had me toying with the idea of improving my DPF and getting thin. But I wasn't that serious. Also, with DPF at Level Four in the chart, anything that could disrupt the first three levels became a priority and would derail the DPF goal. It just wasn't as important as other things.

Then something happened. My physical security was threatened. I was experiencing physical ailments that I hadn't before and needed to take drugs to counteract them. There was an inability to enjoy certain activities with my kids and family without feeling like I was hurting myself or holding them back. Without knowing it at the time (or thinking about it quite this way), I made the decision to move my DPF to a Level Two Personal Safety concern. Once I did that, things in my life pertinent to dieting changed to what they are today. I now view them as a safety and soundness issue in my life. My DPF today comes before a lot of other things in my life.

My theory is this: How you achieve the things in your life is determined by where you as a person put them on your own individual hierarchy of needs. You have to take a real personal assessment of the things in your life and then look close at where you put them. Some things make sense. Some things do not. There may be conflicts that cause life events to be at issue for you. Also, and very important to my theory, is that you can move things in your life from one location on the pyramid to another. It is not easy to just "do". It takes a strong degree of self-realization and self-awareness. It also may require something very serious to affect your life and force this change. But it IS possible.

As an illustration of this, let's explore a subject that people have differing values about in terms of their placement in the personal hierarchy of needs. There are many people in this world that put their Career Aspirations in the Safety and Soundness box on Level Two. For them, something in their lives convinced them it deserved this position. Something in their upbringing or personal experience has supported this placement. As a result, the Social Need things (the Level where most people put 'family and friends') take a back seat to work. This causes conflict not because this person has put Career in the "wrong place" but because their placement of it is so at odds with the majority of society. In many societies, take Japan and China for example, it is expected that the Male personal hierarchy chart look just this way! The Female hierarchy chart in these societies, however, puts Career at the Fourth Level if even giving it a position at all. So the Female hierarchy chart has Family as a priority before Career. In that way, these societies have determined that you may be able to optimize both Career and Family within a family unit. It is highly dependent on a family structure (husband and wife) being stable and that that structure is acceptable to both husband and wife. I am sure there are conflicts that arise because of this societal norm.

So, based on all this theory, what motivates Kirstie Alley (or any of us)?

What Motivates Kirstie Alley - Part Three