STANDING ON THE SHOULDERS OF GIANTS
Abraham Maslow on Courage & Resilience
One can choose to go back toward safety or forward toward growth. Growth must be chosen again and again; fear must be overcome again and again.
—Abraham Maslow
Humanistic psychologist known for the hierarchy of needs
Meet the Giant
Abraham Maslow
Abraham Maslow was an American psychologist and a leading figure in humanistic psychology. He is widely known for his hierarchy of needs and his study of self-actualization—the development of human capacities toward fuller expression. Maslow’s work explored the recurring tension between safety and growth. A closely documented version of this statement says that growth must be chosen repeatedly and fear overcome repeatedly. The spreadsheet wording is a concise paraphrase of that established idea rather than its most complete form.
What This Means
Abraham Maslow’s words frame difficulty as a place where courage can become visible. Growth requires repeated movement beyond safety, not one permanent victory over fear. Resilience does not require pretending that fear, failure, or uncertainty are easy. It asks us to remain engaged long enough to discover what the experience can teach and what action is still possible.
The value of a hard experience is not that suffering automatically makes us stronger. Growth depends on what we do with the experience: whether we learn, adapt, ask for help, try again, or choose a different path. Courage is therefore less a feeling than a practiced response.
The invitation in “Choose Growth Again and Again” is therefore not to admire the idea from a distance. It is to test it against real life. Notice where the principle already appears in your choices, where you resist it, and what one concrete experiment could make the insight more than a quotation.
Why It Matters
This matters because setbacks can easily become identities. A resilience perspective separates what happened from what must happen next and restores room for choice.
Growth requires repeated movement beyond safety, not one permanent victory over fear. In practice, that can mean making the next step smaller, protecting a boundary, asking a better question, or simply noticing what you usually rush past. The point is not perfection; it is creating a more conscious default.
Used this way, “Choose Growth Again and Again” becomes a working principle rather than an inspirational slogan: something you can return to when the old pattern reappears.
A Moment of Reflection
What challenge are you facing that asks for courage rather than certainty? How could the principle behind “Choose Growth Again and Again” change the next step you take?
Carry This With You
Growth requires repeated movement beyond safety, not one permanent victory over fear.
Source & Attribution
Abraham Maslow, The Psychology of Science: A Reconnaissance (1966)
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