The 6 Human Needs -Part 6/6

Part 6 – The sixth of the 6 human needs – The need for Contribution

Let's talk about the last of the 6 human needs, the 2nd need of the spirit: "Contribution."

I can't do direct client work. I will do more harm than good.

I have spoken about my journey on the dark side of contribution in the past.

I spent much of my adult life believing I could & should “save” people.

I believed that this is how I demonstrated my value to the world,
I tortured myself by trying to heal those who refused to do their own inner work, & I convinced myself that I could change others for the better despite knowing that they didn’t want to change themselves.

This is not how to go about fulfilling our need for contribution.

It will lead to stress, overwhelm, burn out, depression & imposter syndrome.
As human beings we have a desire to contribute something of value, whether that is manifested through community, family, or society.

The sixth human need is the desire to make a difference and to contribute to a greater good. This is the need to help, serve, and support someone or something bigger than ourselves in a meaningful way.

As human beings we have a desire to contribute something of value, whether that is manifested through community, family, or society.

Once I understood these 6 human needs, my behaviours began to make sense to me. These needs were the motivation for my behaviour. I was simply trying to meet these needs. I just didn’t know how to do it in a healthy way.

The way to lasting satisfaction and fulfilment is through the last three needs: the need for connection, growth, and contribution. If we attempt to reach a fulfilment through certainty, variety, and significance alone, we will fall short.

The problem with a high reliance on certainty that no matter how much we seek to control our surroundings, we will never be able to gain complete certainty, as we live in a world of constant change.

The issue with significance is that no matter where we look, we will always be able to find someone who is more significant than us. If we let our need for significance dominate, we end up as people that are more concerned with personal reputation than adding value to the client.

The best strategy for lasting satisfaction and sustained drive is to recognise that your work is part of your purpose and to look at ways in which your needs can be met by the career that you do.

True leaders are not just doing a job, they are doing a purposeful job that fulfils their need for growth and contribution.

We have had a close look at the deep-seated human need for Certainty, Uncertainty (or variety), Significance, Love & Connection, and Growth – and we’ve seen how meeting these needs governs all the decisions we make.
We’ve also heightened our awareness of the kinds of behaviours we produce when these needs are unmet.

We have noted that the first four needs are needs of the personality whereas the last two are considered needs of the spirit. If all your energy is taken up trying to manage the first four needs and you’re unable to attend to the last two, true satisfaction will always allude you.

Running through the first four needs, it is easy to see how they propel us towards wholeness and prepare us to meet the fifth need of Growth. It’s Growth that acquires us something of true value, that makes us develop the strengths, talents, and purpose we were uniquely gifted with into something that…we can give away.

Almost like playing on a computer game, figuring out how to successfully meet each of these needs means we can level up to the next.

Once you’ve satisfied your need for Certainty, you can ground yourself with enough security to establish a base from which to continue. From that base, you can start to look for a little motivation, inspiration, and variety in life – meeting your need for Uncertainty.

Venturing out from our stable base to find that variety allows us to relate to others and the internal question of how we stack in that interaction presents itself. We look for what sets us apart and makes us unique and valuable to the whole – what makes us feel Significant.

With that significance ascertained, we feel worthy of extending ourselves towards the rest of the group and making that Connection with a greater community, hopefully finding ourselves Love. Being accepted into a community and being loved for who you are is a powerful source of strength and energy, and with that strength and energy, we push ourselves to develop further and to Grow.

We grow our positions, we grow our surroundings, we grow our knowledge, we grow our connections, we grow our spirituality. With this growth, the next step seems obvious – you give it away.

If you’ve successfully fulfilled all of the previous needs, then there is no need to hold on to everything you produce. Our human instinct is to build our community with the knowledge that we’ve gained, to help others better meet their needs, to build better and stronger relationships and to help elevate our surroundings. With the value and product of our growth, we Contribute.

Throughout the world, there are many, many people who have amassed great wealth and great success, and yet they are unsatisfied and unhappy. They use that money to search for a satisfaction that always seems slightly out of their reach, and they are restless in that search. And then there are those who have little in terms of financial wealth who live lives of great peace and fulfilment. These are the people who can tell you that you do not require great financial means in order to contribute.

When you look at the leaders in any environment, especially on the world stage where their significance and growth loom large, there is a distinct difference between those who have discovered true fulfilment in life and those who are still throwing their weight around, unsatisfied.

That difference is governed by whether they have been able and willing to genuinely contribute back to their environments, to their families, to their teams, to their communities, to their countries. There is a serenity that comes with giving things away.

How can you meet your need for contribution, and how can you encourage others to experience the feeling of it too?

How can you give back knowledge of what you’ve learned to someone that needs to take the next step?

How can you contribute to your team as they navigate the week ahead?

How can you give back to your community?

What time can you give today to someone who will value it?

Let the leading question in your head today be “What can I give?”.

Resourceful behaviours: Paying it forward, donating to charity, volunteering, helping people, doing things for others.

Un-resourceful Behaviours: Martyrdom, giving without learning to take care of self, giving to receive.

Let go of what doesn't belong to you to make room for what does.

The six human needs and how to have these needs met in the healthiest ways is one of the many learnings we teach in our practitioner trainings.

We will support you to bring awareness to your limitations so that you can smash through them and live the life you truly desire and deserve.

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