Basic Human Needs – Are Your Needs Being Met?

We all have basic human needs – are yours being met? As human beings, it is important to realise we have needs. However, quite a large number of people who come to me for coaching, have not thought about their own needs before as they have been too busy looking after everyone else (and don’t worry you are in good company). Subsequently, in this post I am going to share –

• Background to Human Needs,
• Are Your Needs Being Met?

Let’s get started…

Background to Human Needs

From my own experience and also in my work with clients, Abraham Maslow was the first person I came across to discuss human needs back in my university days. Abraham Maslow (1908-1970) started his professional career as a behaviourist, however moved on to become a psychoanalyst. In 1943, in a paper titled “A Theory of Human Motivation”, he proposed the psychological theory known as Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. His suggested we had two different types of needs –

• the first four levels of the pyramid and are needs relating to survival and focusing on deficiencies (D-needs)
• the final layer and needs relating to psychological growth and focusing on being ourselves and everything we are capable of becoming (B-needs).

Maslow suggested we focus on the first level of motivation and then once that is met then we can focus on the next level.

Are Your Needs Being Met?

After reading the above list of needs, what did you identify? Are your basic needs being met or are there some areas that are not being met? As we begin to understand what drives our decisions and behaviours on a daily basis, we can develop awareness in to why we do the things we do (especially some of the unhelpful strategies we use and impact us physically, mentally, emotionally, socially and spiritually).

Each day we fulfil these needs – either in a constructive or resourceful way or in a destructive and unresourceful way. Once we develop greater awareness around our human needs and why we do what we do, we can then consider other ways to meet these needs in a more resourceful way and create inner peace and harmony with our lives.

Over to You…

I hope this post has given you some insight in to basic human needs and whether or not you’re needs are being met. If you have any questions or comments, please write them below.

If you are ready to reclaim your courage and take the next step towards freedom and opening your heart, why not join our Toolkit? Or you can also join the “Your Needs Matter” adventure here.

References –

Maslow, A.H. (1943). A theory of human motivation. Psychological Review, 50(4), 370-96. Retrieved from http://psychclassics.yorku.ca/Maslow/motivation.htm