The 6 Basic Human Needs That Influence Your Quality of Life
Have you ever asked yourself, “Why am I the way I am?” Why do people make certain decisions and not others? Why do people behave in unhealthy ways when they know they’re unhealthy?
At the core of every decision, action, emotion, value, and belief are the 6 basic human needs.
How are these basic needs developed?
Many of our needs are developed in childhood, and they continue to show up in our adult life. If our needs were met when we were children, we would have a more positive outlook on life with positive beliefs. But if our needs are not met, it leads us to have negative beliefs about relationships, life, etc.
The way we were raised and if our needs were met determines many of our beliefs and values in life. We all desire these needs, and we find ways to meet them. We can do that in either a healthy or unhealthy way. When we healthily embrace these needs, we will have a balanced and harmonious life.
What are the 6 human needs?
Certainty: assurance you can avoid pain and gain pleasure
Uncertainty/Variety: the need for the unknown, change, new stimuli, adventure
Significance: feeling special, unique, needed, or important
Connection/Love: a strong feeling of closeness or union with someone or something
Growth: an expansion of capacity, capability, or understanding
Contribution: a sense of service and focus on helping, giving to, and supporting others
These needs are ranked differently for everyone. You might feel like some are more important than others or that you don’t feel the desire to meet these needs. But everyone, in some capacity, desires these needs. (Read A Beginner’s Guide to Shadow Work here.) doing some shadow work can also help uncover what you desire.
The first four needs determine our personality, while the last two form our spiritual needs.
Certainty
Certainty is the desire to feel safe and comfortable in any environment. This also means feeling safe in your career, finances, family, romantic relationships, friendships, and with yourself.
When you feel certain about these aspects of your life, you know that everything is going to be okay. You know you’re going to have a job that brings in an income and a bed to sleep in at night. When you feel certain, you also feel grounded, protected, provided for, and secure.
But everyone has a different standard for feeling safe. For example, one person might feel safe having $5,000 in their bank account at all times, while another person might feel safe having $50 in their account. It’s all about what makes you feel the safest.
Feeling uncertain is very stressful on the human brain, especially if it has to do with basic needs like food, water, shelter, or clothing. People will go to great lengths to avoid uncertainty because they don’t want to be in that pain. Sometimes they find healthy ways to feel certain, and sometimes their not. But feeling safe and certain is a basic need that everyone desires.
How to embrace certainty: Understand that you have everything you need right now and feel gratitude for everything you own, everything you’ve accomplished, and all the amazing relationships you have in your life.
Uncertainty/Variety
We all want a bit of adventure in our lives, some spontaneous moments. Those types of surprises make us feel alive and fulfilled. But on the other end of the spectrum, uncertainty can be terrifying. You can’t control everything that happens to you. You can only control how you deal with it.
Uncertainty can be beneficial and can help you grow in different parts of your life. Uncertainty is magical because you never know when your life is completely going to change.
How to embrace uncertainty: Do something that scares you every day, step out of your comfort zone more, try a new workout routine, make meals you haven’t tried but always wanted to, or talk to new people.
Significance
This need comes back to feeling seen and heard. We all want to feel important to some extent. Some like more attention and validation, and some like less. We want to know that we’re important to people that people want to be around us. We want to be liked.
This goes back to the ego, survival, and caveman days. If we don’t fit in or people don’t like us for any reason, the ego sees that as a threat. If people don’t like us, we’ll be thrown out of the group and left to fend for ourselves. Our brains are wired to believe that everything is a threat, so the ego steps in to make sure that we survive.
Obviously, it’s a whole different story now. We consciously know that if someone doesn’t like us, it doesn’t mean we’re going to die. But that’s why we all want to feel important because that’s how we’re built. When you don’t feel significant, you may feel jealous, have low self-esteem, or compare yourself to others. People want recognition and validation because it makes them feel important and “doing something right.”
How to embrace significance: Do things for the people you love, volunteer your time helping others, learn a new skill or find a hobby that you’re good at, learn how to validate yourself, and praise yourself for the things you know and can do.
Connection/Love
Humans need love and connection. We’re meant to be around other people and bond with them. Life without connection and love is incredibly isolating. People naturally want to give love, receive love, and experience love from friendships, families, and romantic relationships.
How to embrace connection/love: Learn how to be vulnerable and express emotions in a healthy way, find relationships and friendships that are more than superficial, spend quality time with the people you love, give lots of love to your pets, and figure out your love language and the love language of the people you love.
Growth
You are always growing, whether it feels like it or not. You are not the same person you were a year ago, 6 months ago, or even a week ago! Your soul is yearning for growth and knowledge. You always learn something new from the decisions you make and the situations you’re in.
Humans need growth spiritual, intellectual, physical, and emotional growth. Spiritual growth can look like getting in touch with your Higher Self or connecting with God more by praying. Intellectual growth can look like learning new skills, reading, and expanding your knowledge. Physical growth can look like becoming healthier, eating nutritious foods, going to the gym, and moving your body. And emotional growth can look like managing your emotions and learning the difference between reacting and responding.
How to embrace growth: Move your body, read new books, personal development, manage emotions, and learn your limiting beliefs.
Contribution
All humans have the same underlying purpose in life: to be of service. You fulfill this every day in ways you don’t even realize. Everything you do is either helping yourself or helping others. There is no better feeling in the world than giving to others and contributing your time, knowledge, compassion, space, and empathy to others.
When you’re contributing to others, you are also fulfilling the other 5 needs:
Certainty - you know for a fact that what you’re doing is positively helping someone.
Uncertainty/Variety - you might do something you don’t usually do and come to find that you really enjoy volunteering your time or teaching.
Significance: when you help someone, you know that you are important.
Connection/Love: you are building friendships and connections through your service, and people appreciate what you’re doing for them
Growth: helping others helps you grow because you are thinking of someone other than yourself and understanding that their happiness equals your happiness
How to embrace contribution: volunteer, mentor, service-based career, and spending time with children.
Why should I have these needs met?
Not everyone will feel the same about each need. Some may not even be on their radar. Some people feel more connected to one need more than another. But most of your personality and your beliefs stem from these needs either being met or not met.
Everyone wants to live a happy and joyous life, so which needs will you work on today? People can find healthy ways to meet these needs, which changes your core values and beliefs to ones that benefit you mentally. Knowing which needs you need met the most can help you have healthier relationships, better mental clarity, a greater quality of life.
If you have any questions or suggestions for what you want to hear from me next, leave them in the comments below or send me an email at hello@sangeetharamachandran.com
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