Looking for simplifying your life?
Have you ever felt like things are quite complicated and you could save yourself some energy?
Discover the number one way to do it…
Why simplifying your life?
The moment you simplify your life, you will feel better with yourself, less stressed and more focused on what truly matters to you.
You’ll have more energy and more time!
Let me share with you what has worked for me and how it will for you too…
The one secret to simplifying your life…
Taking care of your needs!!!
I know, it may sound very easy to do, we all heard a lot about the needs of every human being etc…
But let me explain to you why this is THE WAY that will help you on simplifying your life…
No more expectations, no more misunderstandings, let’s gain more time!
The problem is that we are all expecting people to know what we NEED.
When we are sad, mad, in love, single, happy, excited, no matter how we are feeling, we are expecting for people to fulfill all of our needs!
But imagine this: if we don’t even know in the first place what are our needs, neither how to fulfill them, how can somebody do it for us?!
Are you following? I’ll give you an example 🙂
A dad is telling his son the following sentence: “Marc, please don’t let your stuff everywhere, be more organized! I really don’t know how you’re doing it!”
There is a possibility that the son doesn’t feel like organizing and tidying up at all…! And let me tell you why! The dad makes it sound like it’s his son’s problem when in fact, it’s HIS PROBLEM 🙂
Because THE DAD wants that things will be organized so his need of organization/harmony would be fulfilled.
I know that it doesn’t sound easy to express yourself like this “My need of organization and harmony isn’t fulfilled when I see all of your things everywhere. Can you please pick them up?” 🙂 to someone who’s not used to! But I can assure you that if we would all do it… The world would be completely different 🙂
But first, you need to know what needs you have!
Why knowing what are your needs is important?
Discovering what are your needs is SUPER important.
Let me tell you why.
Every time in life, when you feel good or less good, it’s because of your needs being fulfilled or not.
So, the first thing to do is knowing what needs you have.
After that, you will connect the emotion you’re feeling at the moment and you will know how it’s affecting your need being fulfilled or not being fulfilled. Let me give you another example.
You are spending time with your partner. The problem is that today, it’s super easy to get distracted by our phones…
So he/she is spending time on his/her phone and you’re here, waiting to receive a bit of affection and a bit of love!
So you start feeling annoyed and/or frustrated.
This feeling is giving you the signal that one of your needs isn’t fulfilled. Maybe the “affection (love)” one?
And this is it! Understanding what’s going on inside of you is the most important. Then, you can take care of the need not being fulfilled and start feeling better.
I will give you more indication below on how to take care of your needs.
A bit of theory: Maslow’s hierarchy of Needs
You probably already heard of Maslow’s famous pyramid, well I found it here, it’s super easy to understand it.
To read the pyramid, you need to start by the bottom of it. A human being needs to first fulfill his physiological needs.
The moment they are fulfilled, he can try to fulfill his safety needs, then his belonging and love needs etc., etc.
9 human needs from Manfred Max-Neef (+2 from Marshall Rosenberg)
While learning the nonviolent communication method (check out this post to know more about this amazing way of communicating!), I remember Marshall Rosenberg enumerating the 9 human needs from Manfred Max-Neef.
Have a look at each one of them and then, write them down on a paper so you can always have a look and figure out which one isn’t fulfilled.
But first, let’s have a look at all of them:
✓ Subsistence (basic needs such as eating, drinking…)
✓ Protection (safety)
✓ Affection (love)
✓ Understanding (empathy)
✓ Participation, warm community
✓ Leisure (rest, play)
✓ Creativity
✓ Identity
✓ Freedom
Marshall Rosenberg added these 2 needs:
✓ Autonomy, choose your life
✓ Meaning and purpose
Here’s the ultimate list of all of your needs!
3 steps to follow to understand and take care of your needs
1. Understand how you are feeling
The first thing to do in a situation (where you feel good and less good) is identifying what are your feelings. Do you know how to name the feelings you may be feeling?
Get the list of all the emotions out there when our needs are being met and when they are not being met:
2. Knowing how you are feeling, can you say what need is being fulfilled or not being fulfilled?
Just understanding how your mind works and giving it attention will already help you a lot!
I say it a lot: we feel comfortable with what we know. So, already being able to put a name on what’s going on inside of you is helping you.
Now, look at the list of the 9 human needs in red and figure out which need isn’t or is being fulfilled.
3. What to do now? Take care of your needs! Speak up and make clear demands.
It’s VERY important for you to understand that you are the only responsible for fulfilling your own needs. No one is inside of your head, no one knows what they’re supposed to do to help you feel good, so you need to speak up for yourself.
This one is a BIG step from the nonviolent communication method, it’s so powerful, I love it!
The moment that you realize how you’re feeling and what need isn’t being fulfilled, you can ask someone to help you fulfill it. When I say “ask someone”, I mean, make a clear demand.
For instance, you remember the example I took up there in this post?
Well, this would be your reaction to your partner being on his/her phone while you two are spending some time together. In your head, these could be your thoughts:
“Ok. So I’m feeling annoyed and frustrated. My need for “affection (love)” isn’t being fulfilled. I want to feel joy and affection. I will be able to fulfill this need if I’m having these feelings.
So, I’m going to ask my partner to put his/her phone down and to be with me in order to fulfill my need by making a clear demand.
Since I’m reading Tamara’s blog, I know how to use the nonviolent communication method. So, I will express myself using the 4 steps:
1. We are spending some time together and I see that you are on your phone.
2. I’m feeling annoyed and frustrated.
3. It’s important for me to spend time with you. My need for “affection (love)” isn’t fulfilled.
4. I would love if you could help me fulfilling this need. Can I ask you to put down your phone for a bit please and spend time with me?”
Teach the people around you
Actually, I know that it’s not easy at all to use it in your everyday life, even more, when the other person doesn’t even know the method :), but you can definitely talk to them about it.
At the start, it wasn’t easy and not comfortable at all for me to use it.
And it’s not going to happen in one day! But with practice and time, you’ll get there, slowly slowly, one day at a time 🙂
Get to know yourself better
Knowing your feelings, your emotions and understand what’s going on inside of you is part of any personal development journey.
The more you will know yourself, the more comfortable you will feel because you know your reactions and what they mean.
Then, you can take actions to get the result you want which let’s face it, is being happier every day more, right? 🙂
