Everyone of us is need based:
I’ve said before that ALL BEHAVIOR (Everything you think, feel, and do) is based on your experiences, perceptions, and your deepest needs.
We all have the same needs, but in different degrees. Someone may have strong love and belonging needs while another has strong survivalist needs.
To understand your behaviors, figure out which universal need is your strongest. In doing so, you can get an ah-ha about your thoughts, feelings, and actions. In doing this, you can open yourself up to new experiences and understanding to hopefully make healthy choices in your life to get your need(s) met. You can have more than one strong need.
EVERYONE HAS THE SAME NEEDS IN DIFFERENT DEGREES
Love and belonging
Power
Freedom
Fun
Survival
Purpose in life (spiritual)
Below are examples of behaviors you might see in someone with a high degree of need in a specific area. See if you can find yourself. Beside each behavior, place a number based on whether it fits you. At the end of each section, count up the points and see in what order your universal needs stack up. (These are ONLY SOME examples of typical behaviors)
Scoring:
1 = Not me at all
2 = Maybe relates to me but very rarely
3 = Relates to me but only under certain circumstances
4 = I do this more often than not
5 = This is me, no question
| LOVE AND BELONGING | |
| Enjoys social activities | |
| Cooperative with others | |
| Likes to belong to clubs, groups, community events | |
| Seeks out friendships | |
| Family is very important | |
| Craves intimacy | |
| Self esteem derived from what others think of them | |
| Feel lonely and/or depressed if not involved in a greater cause or group | |
| Strives to please others | |
| Puts others needs before their own | |
| Has many friends | |
| Teacher’s/boss’s pet | |
| Tends to be affectionate | |
| More likely to be a follower then leader | |
| Strives to find others needs and to fill them | |
| High need to be liked by others | |
| Hard time saying NO | |
| Purpose in life is in ability to help others |
| POWER | |
| High achiever | |
| Competitive | |
| Desires recognition for achievements/ skills | |
| Strong will for self-worth | |
| Needs to win at games | |
| Needs to feel correct | |
| Pride in completing challenging goals | |
| Enjoys being highly skilled | |
| Need to dominate situations/and or people | |
| Over achiever | |
| Involvement in political/social activist activities | |
| Aggression | |
| Involvement in behaviors that make the person feel stronger/invincible (excessive drinking, fighting, risk taking behaviors) | |
| Wants to be influential | |
| Need to be affiliated with other people at the top of their game | |
| Desires to gain higher education to feel better about self | |
| Sexually aggressive | |
| Gives up family/friends to climb their career ladder | |
| Has a hard time being told they are wrong | |
| Prefers independent sports as opposed to team sports |
| FREEDOM | |
| Desire to make their own choices | |
| Does not want responsibilities to tie them down | |
| Does not like to listen to people in authority | |
| Strives to be their true selves regardless of consequence | |
| Does not want to make commitments | |
| Does not give in to peer pressure | |
| Independent | |
| Likes to choose their own path | |
| Likes to be seen as outside the box | |
| Likes to keep their opinions open and not make decisions | |
| Craves spontaneity | |
| Enjoy independent thinking and creativity | |
| Not satisfied with other’s answers, needs to find things out on their own | |
| Restrictions make them restless | |
| Likes to be self-sufficient | |
| Bores easy with daily routines | |
| Relates to other’s needs for freedom | |
| Creative expressionism | |
| Does not do well maintaining or seeing need for planning | |
| FUN | |
| Likes to throw parties | |
| Craves the energy of new/adventurous things | |
| Likes to be around other people with common interests | |
| Can be indiscriminate | |
| Pleasure centered | |
| Easily bored with daily routines | |
| Does not take self/life too seriously | |
| Enjoys playing but does not need to be competitive | |
| Humorous | |
| Willing to break tradition for fun, excitement, joy | |
| Searches for humorous things/people/events | |
| Can bore easily in long term relationships | |
| Likes to travel to learn and experience new things | |
| Creative for pleasure and not for completion of a project | |
| Craves originality | |
| Does not like confrontation | |
| Enjoys learning in nontraditional ways | |
| Can be seen as always on the go | |
| Enjoyment of life is seen as most important |
| SURVIVAL | |
| Fears for the future | |
| Stores or hordes food/water/survival tools | |
| Low trust of others/government | |
| Fears losing their freedoms | |
| Needs to feel prepared for anything | |
| Typically very tense | |
| Fears the unknown | |
| Very observant | |
| Instinctive | |
| Self efficient | |
| Can become impulsive, aggressive is threat of survival is challenged | |
| Can be considered primitive in thinking/living (so busy concern about surviving all else is put to the side) | |
| Strong ego, pits self against others | |
| Can be seen as greedy | |
| Needs things to be predictable to feel safe | |
| Sees threats where others do not | |
| Often intolerant of differences in other people or ways of living | |
| Can have conspiracy based thinking | |
| Feels insecure/anxious inside |
| PURPOSE DRIVEN (SPIRITUALITY) | |
| Desires to be closer in relationship with higher being/power/element | |
| Explores self/meaning of life | |
| Needs purpose in life to feel whole | |
| Can become judgmental and self-righteous | |
| Can be religious/external doctrine focused | |
| Can fears doing the wrong thing or for the wrong reason | |
| Can be existential and altruistic | |
| May break from tradition to explore other cultural spiritual practices | |
| Maybe willing to give up much to gain spiritual wisdom | |
| May have complex rituals of behavior to feel closer to a higher power or their true being | |
| May seek out paranormal experiences or classify experiences as miracles, demonic or other worldly | |
| May refuse to conform to society norm of religious or doctrine related thoughts, dictates | |
| Can be more tolerant of differences in people and cultures then average person | |
| May have experienced one or more profound mystical, paranormal or other worldly event | |
| May seek out others who share similar experiences or views of life and/or a higher power | |
| May seek and find spiritual values/meaning in life based on nature/science | |
| May engage in experimental/chemical/risk taking behaviors to find a feelings of nirvana or out of body experience | |
| Attempts to fill voids in life/past through higher thoughts/learning/spiritual education/practice | |
| May extend need for meaning of one’s life to reason and causation for universe and life in general |
Total scores:
Love and Belonging: _________
Power: _________
Freedom: __________
Fun: ___________
Survival: ____________
Purpose of Life (Spirituality): __________
Ask someone close to you to take the same quiz and compare the results. It may help explain why you gravitated toward them or why there are conflicts between the two of you.
Let’s say you have a strong love and belonging and someone else has a strong freedom need. Can you see how these two people might have misunderstandings and conflicts? Once you know the needs, why the person chooses the behaviors they do, it gives an opportunity to communicate to find a common ground that meets both needs.
** Information based on the work of Dr. William Glasser
Deborah Sickle Hill 
What’s on your mind?