The Human Needs
In my last blog post, I shared the concept of creating a formula for the feelings you want to invoke more of, or the person you’d like to become, i.e. (a+b=c). Seems like a simple formula, right? Yes…and no. What’s the missing link in the equation?
For me, at times it may be easy to identify the actions or inactions (b in our equation) that lead to my desired outcome. And yet I can remain “stuck,” unable to fulfill that part of the formula, only to end up in a shame spiral of doom. Sound familiar? Using my example from the last post, say I want to go to bed earlier, and I know the actions or inactions I “should” take to get the desired outcome. Nonetheless, I find myself watching just one more episode or scrolling through my phone just one more time only to end up an hour or two or three! beyond my ideal bedtime. “Dammit, Flora! What gives?!”
This is where the Human Needs Test can come in. At its core, the concept of the Human Needs Test is that we have six core needs: Certainty, Uncertainty, Love & Connection, Growth, Contribution, and Significance. These needs are what drive our behaviors at any given time. We all have a top one or two needs, which will fluctuate at different periods of our lives depending on our life circumstances. For instance, at the beginning of my divorce my top need was Certainty, in which I had a strong pull for safety, security, and stability. I desperately needed and wanted a regular and monotonous routine day in and day out. Everything from eating the same thing every day to waking or sleeping at the same time every single day. Sounds boring? It kind of was, and I relished every moment of it!
Understanding your top need(s) is pivotal to understanding your behaviors on a daily/weekly/monthly basis and to unlocking ways in which you may be stuck or making disempowering action or inactions that don't meet your desired outcome. When you take a look at your behaviors on a regular basis and then couple them with their respective needs, you can then better understand where your priorities actually are, not where you think they are or should be, and re-shift behaviors or priorities as or if needed.
Going back to the example of going to bed earlier, I identify my regular behaviors as watching a show or movie or scrolling IG late at night. I’m disengaging in order to try and relax and detach from reality. The need it is more correlated to is Love & Connection with myself. Great, we identified the need that I’m trying to meet, but the next step is taking a closer look at the behavior I’m using to meet the need.
Think of the need like a driveway and the behavior like cars in the driveway. There are several different types of cars you can take to get to your needs, but there is only one car that will ultimately be better and preferable than another. Watching another episode and scrolling my phone is like using the brokedown hoopty in the driveway, when there’s a perfectly nice, new, and fuel efficient vehicle parked right next to it. Why drive the hoopty when you could drive the [insert dream car of choice]? It’s a matter of choosing an empowering or disempowering behavior to meet the core need. With this knowledge and self awareness I am now empowered to take a pause and check on which vehicle (i.e. behavior) that I want to take to meet my need(s).
With that said, I invite you to consider your behaviors. What vehicle do you want to take today? What vehicle are you really using on a regular basis? We all take the hoopty at times. However, I’m handing you the keys to the Porsche.
