Anthony Robbins, a famous personal development speaker, has identified that human beings have 6 basic human needs that have to get met or else we feel unsatisfied, upset, lost, frustrated and all all-sorts of other negative emotions. In fact we will do anything to get these needs met, and most of the time we do this unconsciously.

So what are the needs?

Variety – we need to have different experiences in life, different food to eat, different people to see, different tasks in our career.

Certainty - as much as we need variety we also need to have something we can rely on such as having money to live by, having food to eat, a warm place to sleep, our health and so on.

These two needs balance each other out, we need elements of both of them. If everything were the same all the time we would get really bored and if there was just too much variety we may feel overwhelmed and crave some routine or reliability.



Love and Connection – everyone wants to feel loved, like we mean something to the people in our lives and that feeling of connectedness we have with them.

Significance – we also want to feel important not in an over bearing kind of way but like our life means something, that our point of view is heard, like there is something a bit unique about us that stands out from the rest.

Like the first two needs Love & Connection and Significance balance each other out, too much need to be loved can lead to co-dependency and too much significance can lead to you feeling ostracised and separate from your social group.

Growth – Once we have those 4 basic needs met then we start to feel like need for something more, the need to feel like we are learning, developing and growing. When we are not moving forward we start to see unrest and stuck.

Contribution – As well as need to feel personal development once the other needs are our met we start to think about other people and there is the desire to feel like you are helping in some way.

As I mentioned above we will often to anything to get these needs met even with out realising it, this can be done in positive way or actually in a way that is not so good for us. Following are examples of the different ways we get our needs met:

1. We will do something that feels good and that is good for us. For example if you have been having too much variety in your life and are feeling overwhelmed you may take some time out to relax, have a night in and take a long bath just to get back that feeling of certainty again.

2. We will do something that feels bad but is good for us. Maybe you have had a falling out with someone you love and you know you need to have it out to resolve things but hate having to have “that difficult” conversation. You force yourself to do it so the end result will be the feeling of love and connection again.

3. We do things that feel good but are bad for us. If people are bored and crave variety this often leads to drug or alcohol use.

4. Lastly sometimes we actually do things that feel bad and are bad for us. Think of someone who stays in an abusive relationship to feel love and connection.

A useful exercise to do is to think about an area that is not working for you in your life right now? Go through the list of needs and ask your self if you have each on in this area. Often you’ll find one or more is missing.

If there is a need missing ask yourself what you can do to get it met? This will give you action steps to get you out of that situation.