The Four Basic Needs That All People Need To Meet To Feel Whole

Welcome back, everyone this week, I thought I would discuss the four basic needs that all people need to meet to feel whole. However, all humans are different in specific ways regarding these four needs; we are the same. 

We all must understand that all people are looking to meet their own needs, and these four needs drive our desires and behavior. These are the four needs that will be discussed in today’s article.

Please read on if you are interested in learning about these four basic needs.

Certainty And Comfort:

Let’s start by defining what certainty and comfort are. Certainty is when you strongly believe something is a certain way, whereas comfort is when you are completely at ease from constraint or pain.

Basically, this is how people find security and safety. So the next logical step is to ask, what are the pros and cons of this need?

Pros:

• Your confidence will be much higher than those who are uncertain.
• You will function without the contrast of fear, doubt, or worry.
• You will find it easier to obtain your highest state of being, opening yourself up to influencing others.

Cons:

• You will be less open to hearing what others say or how people feel about whatever you are sure about.
• You can become overly confident or arrogant due to your certainty or comfort.
• You are likely to become defensive or aggravated if others challenge your beliefs.

Why is this need for security and safety so important to us? To be certain and comfortable within ourselves and our environments allows us to know that we can survive and even thrive within harsh environments.

The following need I will discuss will be our need for variety or surprise.

Variety/ Surprise:

Again let’s look at the meaning of the word variety, which means different or diverse. Now let’s look at the word surprise, which means an unexpected or shocking event. 

We all need to take a little risk and have a little unknown in our lives, which is vital because it helps us feel alive and provides us with the opportunity to grow and expand our knowledge and experience.

Now let’s take a look at the pros and cons of this need,

Pros:

• It helps us feel alive
• Provides growth and the opportunity for improvement
• It can help to gain a wide variety of experience

Cons:

• It can be overdone, which leads to crazy and unhealthy behavior
• It can lead to self-harm or the harm to others
• It can make life feel scarier and more overwhelming than it really is.

Now that you have a better understanding of this need. Let’s look and our third most important need, which would be significant.

Significance:

 What does it mean to be significant?  It is when we feel important or worthy of attention. Significance is where we fill the need to find value and usefulness in our lives. Believe it or not, we all have to feel important in one or more ways.

Whether you strive to be of service or just to be the best at something, this need drives you, so it is vital that you fill this need in a healthy and productive way. So now, as we have with the other needs, let’s look at the pros and cons of this need.

Pros:

• Gives us purpose
• Builds confidence and self-esteem
• It encourages each of us to be our best

Cons:

• Can drive to become out of balance
• Can cause you to give to the point of personal sacrifice
• It can leave you valuable to the manipulation of others.

Now that I have broken down this need let me move on to the final need I will discuss today: connection.

Connection:

 So what does it mean to have a connection? It is a relationship in which a person, thing, or idea is linked or associated with something else. This is how we feel as if we belong. It is vital to each person that they belong or connects in one way or another to something or someone.

Over the years, how we connect to one another has evolved and changed, but even in today’s society, a connection is a need that we each need to fill.

Let’s look at the pros and cons of this need,

Pros:

• It can help you feel safe
• It can help you to feel as if you matter
• Kills loneliness

Cons:

• You can connect to people or things that are not good for you.
• This can lead to codependency
• Can cause self-destructive behaviors and habits

Now let;t look at one other thing that we all seem to do or act as a driving force behind how we approach each of our needs.

Pleasure And Pain:

It is important to take in the knowledge and perspective no matter whether someone is doing something for good or evil. Whether it is healthy or self-destructive, everyone thinks they are doing the right thing; even if they are doing something terrible, they will always think they are doing it for the right reason.

No one is so broken or dysfunctional as to do something terrible or self-destructive so that they can do wrong or self-destructive things.

In almost all cases, they are looking to find pleasure or avoid pain, and all of them are looking to fill a need, whether producing or getting rid of a feeling or behavior.

Final Thoughts:

Now that I have broken down the four basic needs we all need to fill along with each of their pros and cons, I hope that you better understand why you are driven to do certain things or behave in specific ways.

This should also help you understand others and their behavior toward you or those surrounding you. I hope you found this information helpful and if you would like to share your thoughts on this subject, please do so in the commit section below.

Until next week, Namaste.