What Do You Need Today? Let's Make That Happen.
You can create success inside your day - here’s how
In this article I want to talk about how being able to know and name your needs can support you in creating joy, now. Having needs is part of being human and is not the same as being “needy”. It’s my sense that neediness arises when people fail to know their own needs or rely excessively on others to meet their needs.
In this article I want to invite you to become fluent in the language of your needs, because doing so you can make cool things can happen.
What is a need?
Let’s start with definitions. The dictionary defines a need as a physiological or psychological requirement for the well-being of an organism. The quote at the top of this email is another a lovely way to experience the meaning of the word “need”.
In order to strengthen your capacity for creating success in your life, it’s invaluable to become curious about what your needs are. In fact, this is a version of a list of needs I regularly reference. (Hint: It’s worth printing this off.) As you’ll be able to note from this list, our humans needs go well beyond food, shelter, safety!
Knowing our needs is a practice of self discovery and it’s powerful. What you need today will be different than a year or two ago. As you learn to name your needs and become skillful in meeting them you’ll find a sense of personal power that is a key move in being able to create success, however you define it, now. The more we allow ourselves to unapologetically meet our needs (or ask that they be met) the richer life becomes.
Do you know what your needs are?
Here is what is so amazing about working actively at getting our needs met; met needs generate all the feel good emotions.
In other words, when needs are met we generally experience some kind of emotional satisfaction. And if we’re feeling emotional discomfort we can also get curious about what needs aren’t being met. We can learn from all our emotions.
In this paradigm there’s no such thing as “negative” emotions. All of our emotional experience can point us in the direction of — you guessed it — getting our needs met.
Whose needs matter most?
If you’re on an airplane that’s in peril, they say meet your own needs first by putting on your oxygen mask, then assist others
And, most of us aren’t in that kind of a crisis which means we don’t need to use this phrase as guidance (unless you’re truly in a plane that’s about to crash).
Instead, I invite you to become curious about what is your default mode of meeting needs? Do you easily acquiesce to what others want or put off what you want to do in order to support other’s needs?
The Earlier Version of Me (EVOM), was highly attuned to the needs of others. She would go out of her way to meet the needs of others and make them happy. This guarantees that she’ll be liked and accepted by others. This way also meant deferring her own needs.
Take it from me — this is a very tricky place to live from; trying to make all the people happy approach to getting needs met (which requires that others are happy first, and then, one can go on to get their own needs met) is based on either/ or thinking.
Why either / or thinking doesn’t work.
If your default is meeting the needs of others first you’ll perpetuate the either/or thinking and keep this story alive. You and I both know that waiting for everyone else to be happy and satisfied and then, only then, to look after self won’t ever happen.
And if you build your business or life from this place, a wee cautionary note: it’s dangerous. You’re liable to build a business that makes others happy but keeps joy at bay. You’ll constantly measure your success by their happiness. And your needs will keep getting put off until…..
A New Way
To create success now, it’s invaluable to become fluent in your own needs so that you meet them and here is how you can start doing it now.
trade in the either/or equation for the both / and equation
Both / and says, both my needs and their needs matter. Or, my needs are important and so are their needs.
Both/ and thinking moves out of de-prioritizing our needs and starts to include them on the list. Everyone’s needs are important.
The key skill here is to learn the art of discerning how to meet needs.
We acknowledge that life is not black and white, but grey, and sometimes messy.
Sometimes your needs will trump the needs of others.
Sometimes the needs of others might be prioritized.
Sometimes needs conflict and you’ll need to make a call.
And then there’s the sweet spot — when meeting your needs means also meeting theirs. This is the place we want to aim for when we can.
Can you learn to discern?
Discernment is a muscle. It means starting from a point where everyone’s needs matter and looking at the situation more closely. If you’re run down and need an afternoon to yourself to decompress and relax, you don’t also need to be the one to drive the kids to their friend’s house. Maybe someone else can drive or maybe the kids don’t go, or maybe the kids figure out a plan to get there….
It’s a muscle because you’ll need to stay awake to your default — if you have a tendency towards over-prioritizing the needs of others or de-emphasizing your own you can work on flexing the muscle gradually.
It’s about small shifts. Here are some ideas of how:
Perhaps this week it’s simply about noticing your story about whose needs matter, and whose needs don’t.
Perhaps you can name a need you have this week, then meet it.
Or, perhaps you can lean into possibility and reflect on this question:
What would happen if you could include your own needs as you build your business? What would happen at home if you included your own needs too? What if either / or thinking became an idea of the past? What would become possible?
I’d love to know what this stirs up for you. If you’re up for it, leave a comment below and share your experience so we can learn from one another. This muscle takes practice and the more we do just that — practice — and share what we’re learning the more this can become our collective New Way.
And if you’d like to explore how to do this for yourself, try a complimentary pitch-free coaching session on for size. This is where you can find me: www.theenergyoasis.com/gift-session (note a limited amount of sessions are available each month on a first come, first serve basis). Thanks for stopping by. xo
