What is the self?
The self is the source of willful action towards the self and others.
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Why self-activation?
Most people want to be happy – to feel satisfied with their lives, experience positive emotions more frequently and experience negative emotions less frequently. Happiness itself has been found to correlate with many positive outcomes that are desirable. There is a felt need for improving overall well-being. Google trends show a 500% increase in well-being-related search queries between 2004 and 2019.
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It allows one to push ideas from abstract to concrete
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Push to bring internal changes, irrespective of the external environment
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Creation of an individuated self-identity that is more
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Self-assured
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Well adjusted
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Happiness oriented
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Motivated to be the best self
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Self-activation leads to greater positivity and happiness, which leads to happier communities and a happier planet.
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Benefits of self-activation
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Emotional changes – Self-activation can create a subjective construal between self-concept and social system. People feel proud when they are responsible for a socially-valued positive outcome (Cable et al., 2015). Happier people are also less like to be prone to social feedback and influences which cause a negative self-report. Overall, they become more resilient to negativity and are more likely to develop cognitive functioning that is oriented towards perpetuated happiness and positivity. This allows an overall improvement in emotional health and well-being.
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Physiological changes – broaden and build theory – positive emotions have an evolutionary function (Frederickson, 2001). Positive emotions broaden people’s scope of awareness to include a wider array of thoughts, actions, and perceptions than is typical. This broadened mindset is basic to the discovery of new knowledge, new alliances, and new skills. Positive emotions dismantle the debilitating effects of stress and negative emotions, making people resistant to stress and burnout as well as diseases.
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Cognitive changes. - Calvo and Mello (2015) studied cognitive correlates of happiness and found that happier people consistently perform better in cognitive domains such as memory, attention, and perception. Happy people are more likely to perceive positive events, owing to a cognitive bias towards positive constructs. Lee (2007) reports that higher subjective happiness shows a self-enhancing bias that improves moods, self-concept, and overall resilience to negative life events.
Overall, this means that self-activation can lead to a healthier, happier life, where the body is resistant to disease and the mind is resistant to malaise. There is a greater tendency for creative problem-solving, a better ability to remain calm and grounded in adversity, better social relationships, and overall maximized happiness which is the ultimate goal of human life.
GNC Theory of Self-Activation
Maslow’s theory of motivation places needs in hierarchies, but this hierarchical structure is self-limiting because it compels a view that each stage must be completed for the next stage to be achieved. Many of the constructs are difficult to evaluate. For instance, some people continue to focus on their basic needs because of unresolved childhood issues – which is why we have gluttony and eating disorders, or sexual addiction, etc.
The GNC Theory of Self-Activation looks at needs as a continuum. It acknowledges the developmental needs of humans at every stage of their life, placing the age-appropriate fulfillment of physical and emotional needs at the center of well-being. It identifies four cardinal needs of social connectedness, sense of belonging, safety and security, and problem-solving ability. The theory envisages these four needs as the basic needs that interact with each other to create other skills and attributes required to have a fulfilling life. For instance, problem-solving abilities interact with safety and security, it leads to the development of a sense of fairness and justice which is imperative for grounding an individual. The need for safety and security interacts with social connectedness to create skills for healthy communication. The needs for social connectedness and a sense of belonging interact with each other to create skills of empathy; and the needs for a sense of belonging and problem-solving ability interact to create self-esteem. At the periphery of these needs lie other needs that are not imperative for well-being, but contribute significantly to them and allow individuals to be well-functioning members of a more humane and happier society. These are the needs for creative expression, openness to change and new experiences, feelings of love and community; and healthy relationships.
