Difference between revisions of "Personal Well-Being"

Revision as of 11:56, 18 August 2016

For most of the history of mankind, our personal well-being was mostly about addressing basic physical needs (food, water, shelter, and clothing). Up until the late 19th century, hard work was the inherent ethos for achieving a good life. Industrialization brought us efficiencies into the early 20th century that began to enable people to spend less of their waking hours trying to achieve basic physical needs. It is also when it became more complicated.

The study of human psychology has also evolved with the emergence of Positive Psychology to help us understand our modern day definitions of personal well-being. Positive Psychology is not about happiness that can be influenced by a cheerful mood, pleasure, positive emotions, positive emotions, daily frustrations or bad news. It is not simply positive thinking, which can be harmful if it’s not complemented with critical thinking. It is about achieving your unique definitions of basic needs and personal well-being.

It is very difficult to achieve your unique definition of personal well-being without achieving a minimal level of basic needs:

• Health
• Financial
• Support

In Maslow's hierarchy of needs, this is achieving Physiological and Safety needs to enable pursuit of higher level needs.

Assuming the minimal level of basic needs is being achieved, we can pursue our desired level of personal well-being:

• Purpose and Meaning
• Love and Connection
• Competence and Control

This is very similar to Maslow's hierarchy of needs in achieving Love and belonging (Love and Connection), Esteem (Competence and Control) and self-actualization ({{Purpose and Meaning]]).