– Have you ever had a disagreement with someone, over something silly, like what food to eat? Perhaps there was an important occasion coming up, and one of you want to go to a certain place and the other person wanted to go to another place. Maybe you wanted something that you know and like and the other person wanted something different, that you haven’t had before.

I had an experience recently with my wife, Silvia. We were celebrating a special occasion and we’re a little bit unorganized, we hadn’t planned anything but we live in the city, so we thought well there’s plenty of places to go. But, it was getting late in the day and we’re a bit unorganized. We hadn’t made any plans and so, I was thinking that, let’s go to the local nice gourmet pizza place. We’ve been there a couple of times, it’s great, I like it. Let’s do it. And she’s like no, no, no, I wanna go to this new place. This new exciting place that’s opened up, it’s some sort of Asian fusion place. They’ve got weird things on the menu I’ve never heard of or don’t know what they are. And I was a bit uh. We got into a bit of an argument it. It was like, why am I always wanting to go to the things I know and why is she always wanting to go to the things she doesn’t know? It doesn’t make sense right? It’s uh, it’s annoying.

Hi, I’m Kristen Myers and I’m the founder of Next Level Coach Co. Where we help professionals and entrepreneurs, who are looking to get to that next level in life. Whether that’s more money, more joy, more fulfilment, more vitality. We help them get there by breaking through their unconscious limiting beliefs and negative attitudes. So they can live their best, most fulfilling and joyful lives.

So it’s getting late in the evening and we’re getting a little bit hungry and angry, or hangry. And I just wanna go to this pizza place right, because it’s great, it’s delicious food, it’s good value. And, Silvia really wants to go to this new place, but why’s she getting so excited over it? She doesn’t even know what it is. We haven’t been there before and it doesn’t make sense. And so it got me thinking. There must be some invisible forces at play here. Like why am I craving some certainty and why is she craving something she’s uncertain about, or doesn’t know about? And that lead’s into today’s topic which is The Six Human Needs or The Six Invisible Forces That Drive Our Lives. We’re all driven by the same six fundamental needs, whether who know it or don’t know it. And, it this example, I was craving certainty and Silvia was craving variety. Can you see how there’s a bit of a clash there? We both have both of those needs, but one was more important for me than the other.

Another example, like when I think about my corporate career. When I was beginning my corporate career over a decade ago, there used to be a couple of lunch favourites, a couple of favourite lunch spots that we’d go to regularly. And I had a few friends and colleagues that I’d meet up with every week. And we’d always go, it was usually a Thai place or the sandwich shop. There weren’t that many choices at the time. And one of the friends, let’s call him Ben, and we would go to the Thai place let’s say, every week and I would have my kind of go-to dish that would be the chicken fried rice. And every week, we’d meet up with Ben and some other people and we’d be talking about, what’s Kristen gonna order this week? Hm, Is it gonna be something different? But no, it is the chicken fried rice every week. And they couldn’t get it through their head, why is he always ordering the chicken fried rice? For me it was a no-brainer. It tasted good, it was good value, I’d had it before, I liked it and I knew it. It was safe, it was comfortable. Why would I choose anything else? It’s great, I love it. I only have it once a week. It’s not like I have it every day and so, it’s all good. But now when I think about it, from this new perspective, I see how it was certainty driving me back then, as well.

So there’s this secret formula that we all use every day, whether we know it or don’t know it. And it’s a secret formula that drives every decision that we make, that pulls us towards things that motivate us. So wouldn’t it be useful to know what those things are? Wouldn’t it be useful to know what you’ve been using to make all the decisions in your life? From the very small ones to the very big ones. Well, let me show you what the six needs are. It’s quite simple stuff but, first I’ll acknowledge Tony Robins, who put this together, over a decade ago and he has an amazing TED talk that covers this topic in quite a bit of detail. I won’t be going to that much detail today but if you’re more interested in finding out more, please go and have a look at this TED talk. But here are the six human needs.

The first one is Certainty, which we’ve already talked a little bit about. The second one is Variety, a bit of a paradox here. The third one is Significance. The fourth one is Connection and Love. And then the fifth one is Growth. And the sixth one is Contribution. So let’s talk about these. We all need to meet all of these needs and the top four are kind of the core ones, that we must meet and the last two, are kind of the more spiritual ones, that lead to ultimate fulfillment. Let’s talk about these first four. Certainty is about eliminating or avoiding stress. It’s about survival, stability, being in control. Knowing what’s gonna happen, trying to control every situation.

Variety is the opposite, it’s a bit of a paradox and that’s why I’ve drawn the arrow here. And, there’s also an arrow between these two, bit of a paradox here as well. Variety is the opposite, it’s about excitement, new things, trying new experiences. Pushing beyond the normal boundaries, getting out of your comfort zone. I talked a bit about the comfort zone in a previous video, with the crazy guy in the park, if you recall.

Significance is about being special, being needed, being special, being needed, being important. Being unique, having purpose and funnily enough, it’s not what you always think where people Like sometimes it’s obvious that there’s people, who are putting on a bit of a show because they want the attention and they want the recognition but sometimes the opposite is also true. People who say that they don’t want attention, they don’t want the spotlight. Or they have a big problem that’s bigger than anyone else’s, and no one can help them. These are all attracting, or trying to pull in, meeting the need of significance.

The fourth one is Connection and Love, and that’s about bonding, sharing, teams, community and intimacy. And, that’s a core one as well. And then the last two, are more of the spiritual needs, where Growth is about pushing beyond. I mean, if you’re not growing, you’re decaying. So, it’s about progress, and pushing beyond the boundaries, where you’re going and Contribution is about giving back and giving to something that is bigger than yourself. So looking outside of yourself, helping others, giving back to society, the community, the planet.

The interesting things with these needs is that we can meet all of them, or some of them both in positive ways and negative ways. I can think of positive ways of meeting some of them so, for example, Variety, I can go and try some new food. Something that I haven’t had before. Perhaps going to the restaurant with Silvia, where we haven’t been there before, as opposed to going to what I always know. There’s also negative ways of meeting these needs as well. So for example, smoking. Smoking gives you Certainty of how it’s gonna feel. It might give you some Significance because you go outside and feel like you’re part of the community. And that’s also part of Connection and Love. Maybe you’re smoking with other people and you’re building some Connection there, with fellow people. The interesting thing is that if you meet three of these needs, any three of the needs in any particular activity, it become quite addictive. And you’ll find people getting stuck or doing those things over and over because it meets many of their needs.

So in my life, I’ve already talked about the Certainty. I was very stuck in Certainty and this is kind of the most primal basic human need, it’s about survival. Silvia was kind of craving Variety here. I was also, in my life, craving a bit of Significance and not in the way of me getting up on stage and being in front of everyone and saying, look at me, look at me. But more in, I was kind of inward focused. I was focused on me. I was focusing on how I can do things. How can I be the best? How can I get the next promotion? So I can get more money so that I can buy more things so that I can feel good. So it’s all inward focused. And then, I was kind of not so much focused on, a little bit on Variety like I like to travel and things like that. Connection and Love, I had some good relationships with people and of course lucky enough to meet my wife a few years ago which has been amazing. And then Growth and Contribution. They were there for me but they weren’t at the top of the list. So the top of the list for me were Certainty and Significance.

What I can tell you from having learned all about all of this stuff over the past couple of years is that if you’re stuck in Certainty and Significance, they’re the most painful needs. And I guess the goal here is to get out of Certainty and Significance in to some other ones. It’s going to lead to a happier, more fulfilling, joyful life. So how did I move out of my Certainty and Significance? Well, it’s a combination of things really. It’s about being aware of what’s driving your needs so, understanding if that’s what’s driving it or what could I do differently. Like, what other activities could I do that would meet other needs? And it’s also about influence. I guess that the influence of my wife Silvia, about five, five, yeah five years ago we met and then that led to me starting to do different types of activities. So it was a natural pull towards doing things that I hadn’t done before. Or different things, like trying new foods, travelling to places I hadn’t been to. And kind of gradually step by step, day by day, I was doing new and exciting and different things. And that kind of led me to believe that it’s not unsafe to do new things.

So, if your stuck in Certainty, you’re always looking about control and security and safety and it’s hard to get out of that. There’s a say that I heard recently. If you’re looking for security and safety, or if you’re looking for security, go and try out a prison, it’s very secure there. I guess you can say that being stuck in the world of Certainty is almost being stuck in like a mental prison. So I’m very thankful and grateful to my wife Silvia for pulling me out of these two and into the higher needs, I suppose. The other thing that I realized is that certainty doesn’t lead to fulfilment and it doesn’t lead to happiness. I mean certainty is, when you’re trying to meet Certainty it is a little bit of an illusion around control and I guess I’ve learned now that control is a bit of an illusion. We try to control everything, control every situation and you know, not do this type of activity, but do that type of activity or try and makes things happen the way we want. But what I’ve learned is, you can’t really control anything. Like, when you think about it, you can’t control where you’re born, you can’t control who your parents are. You can’t control what other people do. Maybe you can influence them but you certainly can’t control them and if you think about it, you can’t even really control when you need to go to the bathroom. Like, it’s crazy, right?

So through my conscious awareness of what needs I was trying to meet and the little actions and little doing things differently each day, over the course of a couple of years has led to me changing and my top needs now are, I focus first of all on love. Building good solid relationships where I’m fully present and secondly on growth because I’m all about moving beyond where I’ve been and growing. That’s part of the reason why I left the corporate world. Because, I had been fulfilled in that world for a decade but I got to the point where I’d had enough and I reached a threshold where I needed to do something new, something different and to grow beyond where I was and move into this new world.

So my question for you today is, which needs have you been valuing the most? What’s the top two for you? And, what actions have you been taking, to fulfil those? And, if you were to change this, if you were to change to order the needs, how would that change your life? What would that do for you? How would that make you feel? I challenge you to try and get out of your comfort zone, change up the needs. Think about what you’re doing, the actions you’ve been taking everyday and what new actions could you take that would fulfil higher needs?

I’d love to hear your thoughts. Let me know your feedback by commenting below the video. Can’t wait to hear from you. Until next week. Inspire yourself and inspire others. Cheers.