The needs for esteem, meaning, beauty, self-fulfillment, and helping others toward self-fulfillment (transcendence) build upon all those. Covering these needs at each level is really an act of self-love. If you were to design your own personal hierarchy of needs, what would it include?
Do you find yourself repeating behaviors that sabotage your creative work or your enjoyment of life? Self-sabotage started as a coping mechanism that helped us get through something difficult when we were younger. When the situation we were protecting ourselves from chages, we no longer need that coping mechanism. But it can be difficult to see how to let it go.
I’d like to propose that the people you admire were not actually aiming for Success or Getting Things Right or Looking Good so much as being really curious about and exploring themselves and the world around them. They were becoming themselves, and the opportunities that arose came out of a willingness to take the risk of really knowing who they are. And things “all come together” at exactly the moment when you decide you’re ready for it.