TIP 43
IDENTIFY YOUR NEEDS
Everything comes to the man who does not need it.
How do you figure out what your needs are in the first place? Your emotional needs are what you must have fulfilled in order to be your best. When your needs aren’t being met, you will probably feel irritable, unloved or unappreciated, angry, resentful, jealous, deprived. Any or all of these unpleasant feelings indicate that one of your needs is not being met.
Everyone has different needs. Take Michelle, who has a strong need for independence. When this need is met, she does her best work. When Michelle worked under a boss who micromanaged her, she very quickly became irritable and resentful and started complaining to everyone who would listen. Left to her own devices she does a great job, which is one reason why she much prefers owning her own company—it meets her need for independence. Another person might have a need for clarity and would prefer to work under a manager who spelled out exactly what to do and how to do it. Neither need is better or worse, good or bad, just different. It makes your manager’s job easier if you tell him or her how you need to be managed to perform at your best. If you work best with lots of feedback, tell your manager and set up a system so you can get the regular feedback you need. Perhaps this could be done in a 10-minute weekly meeting with your boss.
Behind just about any bizarre behavior or addiction is an unmet need. If you were starving, you might dig through trash to find food or you might even beg for or steal food. Well, most of us are starving in terms of getting our emotional needs met. Men, this part is for you too. Although in our culture we don’t want our men to have needs, they have as many as women do. It is a part of being human to have emotional needs, and pretending not to have them won’t change the fact that you do.
A client, Raymond, had a need to be in control. Small wonder that he was a judge. When he told his wife about his need to control, she wasn’t the least bit surprised, but by articulating it, they got it out in the open and came up with healthy and acceptable ways for him to meet this need together. For one thing, she decided on the spot to let him have the remote control for the TV.
Here are some of the most common needs. Keep in mind that there are hundreds of different needs, and yours might be some version of one of these. Most people have some variation on the need to be loved. I say “most” because some people have this need so fully met that it doesn’t even occur to them as a need, just like after Thanksgiving dinner it doesn’t occur to you to eat. Variations of the need to be loved include: to be cherished, adored, approved of, acknowledged, cared for, accepted, included, valued or treasured. Read through this list and see if any ring true for you.
Other needs are to control, dominate, command, manage, communicate, or share. Additional needs are to be certain, listened to, comfortable, protected, free, independent, self-reliant, needed, important, useful, noticed or remembered. People might also feel the need to improve, please, or satisfy others. Others have the need to do the right thing, have a cause or vocation, work, be busy. You may need honesty, sincerity, loyalty, order, consistency, perfection, peace, quietness, calmness, balance, power, strength, influence, acclaim, abundance, security.
Pick your top two or three needs (what you must have to be your best) or invent your own. If nothing pops out at you after reading the above list, think about these questions: When do you feel cranky and irritable? Is it when you find yourself saying yes to something when you really wanted to say no? Or when someone is taking advantage of you? Look at the flip side and perhaps you have a need to please others or be liked so you find it very difficult to say no. Identifying your emotional needs isn’t easy. Most people really struggle to select their top four personal and emotional needs from a list, which is why I’ve created (with the help of the coaches in my coaching company) the Emotional Index Quiz, which will tell you what your top four needs are. It is our gift to you and the rest of mankind and is available to take online at www.LifeCoach.com. It takes about 20 minutes to complete and will automatically send your top four needs to you via e-mail.
Identifying your own needs makes it much easier to then figure out how to fulfill and satisfy them. Our unmet needs will drive us, usually unconsciously, to do all manner of bizarre or unattractive things including: overeating, oversexing, overspending, or drinking in excess in an unconscious attempt to get them fulfilled. Yes, they are that powerful. I’m convinced that at the source of nearly every addiction is an unmet personal or emotional need or two. In fact, there is evidence that the main reason Alcoholics Anonymous and other support groups succeed in helping people overcome their addictive behavior is that their members are getting a whole host of emotional needs met in these groups—the need for community, to be understood, to be heard, to communicate, to be appreciated, to share, to be needed, and to be loved. When people stop going to the group meetings, they tend to restart their addictions unless they have another supportive community in place. Interesting.
Even if you don’t have any addictive behaviors, your unmet needs may be prompting you to do things that aren’t in your best interests. You might talk too much if you have an unmet need to communicate or share. You might be overly controlling or too bossy if you have an unmet need to be in control. You might be unconsciously averse to committing to a relationship if you have an unmet need to be free or independent. It is amazing how powerful our needs are and how much they drive our behavior. Thankfully, the first step is to identify your needs with the handy Emotional Index Quiz at www.lifecoach.com and then you can start taking deliberate actions to fulfill your needs in healthy and attractive ways. The topic of needs is such a profound one that I cannot possibly give it justice in a short tip. For an in-depth understanding of personal and emotional needs and how to fulfill them, read my second book, The Secret Law of Attraction, referenced in Appendix D.
Most of my clients balk at this step and want to quickly move on, but I don’t let them because this is a critical element of attracting success. You have experienced how unattractive neediness is, so don’t gloss over this one. If you are having trouble figuring this out, you may want to work on this with a coach. Once you have successfully identified your needs, you will be ready to ask for what you really want (Tip 44).