What Are the Basic Human Needs

1| Need for Certainty

Think about your decision-making process. How much certainty do you attempt to involve in those big and small choices? Many accept certainty as a rare luxury. Others consider it a necessity. This particular need holds different weight for different people, but can be quite the source of stress and anxiety.

Certainty is such a profound and strong yet relatively basic human need because we all crave assurance and comfort. Yet Tony explains that certainty is indicative of the need for survival because we all want to avoid pain. The need for certainty is built in to us so much so that if someone takes it away, the fear of the unknown can be paralyzing. For others, on a more moderate level, not being in control can cause aggravation, fear or mistrust. A highly valued need for certainty means you usually like to keep things the same and not take risks. So start to ask yourself, what types of things does your brain tell you you need to be certain?

We all need certainty. How do we meet the need?

There are positive and empowering, neutral, or negative and disempowering ways that we meet our need for certainty (or any of the other needs). The problem is most people meet their needs, let’s say for certainty, temporarily and not for the long term. Most people meet needs that work for the moment. Call it the sugar high, shiny object syndrome of certainty. You acquired the house, you received your bonus, or maybe you delay a little longer leaving a (toxic) relationship … but now what?

You must create goals and make decisions that are not only attainable but sustainable in order to support your well-being in a positive way. Find that threshold, whether it’s lowering your expectations or raising them, to break through in order to say, I’ve had enough, I am moving forward. Don’t be someone who will sacrifice your goals and dreams to meet those immediate, possibly dead-end, needs.

2| Need for Uncertainty

What if you were certain of every moment of your life? You know what others will say, feel, think and do before anything ever happens. In the beginning of this new elation, how would you feel? Awesome and excited right? Totally in control! But how might that certainty begin to change after a while? Would you start to feel rather bored? Likely really bored from living an uneventful, mediocre life. A life without variety can be rather a drag. That’s why the second basic human need is uncertainty.

We all need some level of surprise and variety. The saying variety is the spice of life does hold true. Do you like surprises? Let’s rephrase that. Do you like only the surprises you want? Consider that variety keeps your brain awake, your senses fresh and your soul alive.

We all need uncertainty. How do we meet the need?

Now I’m not saying you have to sleep with one eye open always expecting the unexpected. You can achieve and enjoy the need for uncertainty in many positive, empowering ways. Seek more variety by simply trying new things, learning different skills and meeting people. In other words, embrace what it means to live with curiosity and try your best to always have a growth mindset.

3| Need for Significance

To feel unique and special are not basic at all but they are fundamentally basic human needs. One of our most popular articles is about overcoming the need for external validation. Having an approval seeking personality means always trying to feel important and needed. While this craving for significance can often be based on low self-esteem, it’s not always the case. The need to feel and live with a sense of significance is also a really common human emotion.

We all need significance. How do we meet the need?

So you can go in two different directions to achieve the need for significance. You can put down others to build yourself up, or you can work at it, and take some risks at times, to do unto others as you would want for yourself. Choose the latter, the empowering, positive and sometimes more difficult road.

Work for it. Earn it. Resist the tendency to base your importance and success on someone else’s failure. Even if you don’t know or even life them. Be true to who you are and who you want to be by engaging authentically with others. Your significance will not only be recognized by them, it will be proudly recognized by you.

4| Need for Connection and Love

You’re not human if you haven’t been hurt or disappointed in a relationship at some point in time. Whether a loss of connection or love has resulted from family dysfunction, romantic breakups, broken friendships, or any struggle with another person, this a critical need and it affects all of us.

Most of us experience some type of pain through not feeling or being loved they way we think we need, so what do we do? Often we minimize future connections. This doesn’t mean that a past relationship has been toxic, it can just be a source of hurt or disappointment and that’s enough to influence how you handle future relationships. Possibly even affects how you live your life.

We all need connection and love. How do we meet the need?

Use your other basic human needs in a positive way. Be (1) certain of the people you allow in your space by removing toxic people from that same space. Create (2) uncertainty and variety by avoiding complacency in your relationships. Practice a growth mindset. Support your own (3) significance by nurturing others with purity of intent. One of the safest and wholesome ways to connect and sustain love is through your need for significance. Not by trying to excessively please others but by practicing generosity. You will find a sense of fulfillment when you take healthy steps in maintaining meaningful connections.

5| Need for Growth

The first 4 basic human needs we’ve covered so far address the general needs of your personality. These last two are needs that create a higher and even spiritual level of fulfillment. Your need for growth is the need to feel and be alive. Own Your Best refers to keeping life in forward moving motion, and we always say that complacency is kryptonite to living your best life. If your professional life isn’t growing, it’s failing. Or if your relationship isn’t growing it’s stagnant. If your physical well-being is not where you want it to be, it’s weighing your down.

Whether it’s your career, your relationships or your self-image, once familiarity sets in so does complacency, discontentment and ultimately unhappiness. What was once a big dream and your source of hope becomes just a way of living that you have settled in to and settled for.

We all need growth. How do we meet the need?

Remember growth mindset? Well, in a broad sense, progress equals happiness. Make progress. If you are not where you want to be, but you start making progress, you are fulfilling the your fundamental need for growth. Anytime you make progress, that’s with any big or small achievement, you build momentum and thus maintain a healthy sense of self-esteem, hope and happiness.

6| Need for Contribution

You can only experience so much happiness and keep it in only for yourself. Even if you are a super private person, if something positive happens to you, do you hold it in? Or is your first instinct to share it with someone with whom you are close? Also, how does it feel when you give the gift of knowledge, assistance or support to someone else? There is only so much joy you can hold inside without indulging that need to share it. By sharing an experience, or your experience, it becomes bigger. It becomes more. Contribution is where relationships and self-worth are both nourished and satisfied in a healthy way.

We all need contribution. How do we meet the need?

Share the good and the bad. Be open and approachable. Make yourself available for others to share with you too. Step outside of your world and experience life with someone else. Contribute not only your time and your talent but be emotionally available to others too. This all comes back to you greater than you gave it.