What are Your Essential Needs?

Feeling lost or like you put everyone’s needs before your own? Are you ready to start to discover what your essential needs are, so you can live more simply, deeply, honestly and also look after your health and well-being? When you do this, you can then support the other people in your life (as your needs have been met) and lead an inspired life…

Subsequently, in this post I am going to discuss –

• What is Deprivation?
• Starting to Transform Deprivation By Identifying Needs…
• What are Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs?
• What are Your Essential Needs?

Let’s get started…

 

What is Deprivation?

There are many definitions of deprivation, including –

• “the damaging lack of material benefits considered to be basic necessities in a society” ~ Google and Oxford Dictionary
• “a situation in which you do not have things or conditions that are usually considered necessary for a pleasant life”~ Cambridge Dictionaries Online
• “the state of not having something that people need: the state of being deprived of something” ~ Merriam-Webster.

Some examples of deprivation include – self-neglect, self-abuse, sense of hopelessness, lack of self-value, addictive behaviour or overindulgence (i.e. overspending on self and others).

Starting to Transform Deprivation By Identifying Needs…

One way to transform deprivation is by identifying your needs. Yes we all have them and from what I have found, the original research on needs goes back to Abraham Maslow.

What are Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs?

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. He suggested we had two different types of needs –

• the first four levels 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. The Abraham Maslow – Hierarchy of Needs as as follows:

What are Your Essential Needs?

By looking at Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, what are your essential needs? Yes, what are your –

• Biological and psychological needs?
• Safety needs?
• Belongingness and love needs?
• Esteem needs? and
• Self-actualisation needs?

As you are identifying your needs, remember to identify a need and not a want! What is the difference? Glad you asked! Personally, I see the difference as –

• a need, when filled nourishes you and helps you survive, and
• a want, when filled entertains you or “It would be nice if..”.

If you confuse or substitute a want for a need, it may drain or deplete you of money, time and energy as they are not essential.

Over the years, what I have learnt working with clients and from my own experiences is that your deepest needs cannot be met by spending money, eating extra amounts of food or winning awards. Meeting your essential needs is also an individual thing, something you need to find out for yourself?  Kahlil Gibran puts it this way 

“Your friend is your needs answered.”

Over to You…

What do you think? What would you add to the above? Feel free to add any questions or observations below in the comments.

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