Understanding the Difference Between Needs and Wants: How to Cultivate a Fulfilling Life
Mar 30, 2023
Have you ever found yourself chasing after what you thought you wanted, only to realize it didn't bring the satisfaction you expected? Perhaps you strive for financial prosperity, professional success, or an intimate relationship but still feel unfulfilled. It's easy to get caught up in our desires, but what if we pause to consider the difference between our needs and wants?
At its core, needs are essential for our well-being emotionally, physically, and psychologically. We need our basic physiological needs of food and shelter to be met to survive. We also have emotional and psychological needs for protection, care, love, belonging, and dignity. In contrast, wants are learned desires, often shaped by socialization, conditioning, or life experiences.
The challenge arises when we confuse our wants with our needs. It's easy to do so, especially if we're unclear about what we need. Often, we prioritize our wants, thinking that attaining them will bring us happiness and fulfillment. But their pleasure is usually short-lived, leaving us feeling unfulfilled or empty.
As children, our caregivers met our needs, responding to our cries and attending to our feelings of anger, sadness, and fear. However, when our needs were left unmet, we learned to protect ourselves by not acknowledging them. As adults, this can truncate us from our needs, leaving us confused about what we truly need versus what we think we want.
Wants can provide pleasure or satisfaction, but since they aren't necessary for our happiness, they can be short-lived or leave us feeling alone or empty inside despite having what we want.
On the other hand, the urge to meet our unmet needs might be so strong that we settle for the connection and relationships that are available rather than what we truly want.
To cultivate a fulfilling life, we must learn to identify and meet our needs. This begins with exploring what we didn't know as children – the felt sense of our needs. What emotions arise when our needs go unmet? For trauma survivors, this can be challenging and triggering. We must approach this process with care, kindness, and gentleness towards ourselves, ensuring we don't overwhelm ourselves and go into a trauma response or freeze.
As we become more attuned to our needs, we may prioritize them over our wants. We may also discover that some of our wants express our unmet needs. For example, the desire for financial prosperity may stem from a need for safety and security, while the longing for an intimate relationship may come from a need for connection and belonging.
We can cultivate a more fulfilling life by understanding the difference between needs and wants. It's not about giving up our wants entirely but learning to prioritize and meet our needs first. This can involve setting healthy boundaries, cultivating self-care practices, and seeking support when needed.
Ultimately, the key to developing a healthy relationship with our needs and wants is to tune into our bodies and emotions. Doing so allows us to identify and meet our needs, leading to a more purposeful and fulfilling life.
If you find that your needs and wants are out of balance, you aren't really happy with life, or you know that you have untapped potential, here are some things you can explore:
- Mindfulness, self-nurturing, and sensory practices - These can help you become more present in the here and now so that you can attune to your thoughts, emotions, and body sensations.
- Get clear on your values so that you can prioritize those things that are important to you. (Making the relationship with yourself a priority can make space for exploring your needs.)
- Set an intention to prioritize your needs and learn to create healthy boundaries.
- Commit to following through on it to the best of your capability. (Being compassionate towards yourself if you get sucked into your patterns)
- Seek support from a trauma-trained professional so that someone can guide you and walk this path with you. Learning to reparent and repattern yourself from a lifetime of conditioned patterns embedded in your cells, neurons, and your nervous system requires support and mentorship.
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