Goals

• Create a personal, prioritized map of needs
• Get a better understanding of your needs
• Get to know your current level of life satisfaction based on your needs
• Pinpoint neglected needs

Introduction

Some days just suck, there's no other way to describe it. And then - every once in a while - we lie in bed and can't help but smile. Nothing particularly exciting happened that day. We might even be more exhausted than we have been in a long time, and we've had our fair share of frustration. The coffee tasted even more like dirt than usual, the kids discovered novel and surprisingly creative ways to wreak havoc in our home, and a project suddenly needs to be done within this week, 2 months before the originally scheduled deadline. But we don't mind. Despite all of this, the day felt energizing and if by tomorrow morning we found ourselves in a loop, not unlike 1993's "Groundhog Day", we wouldn't even be mad about it! What was so special about this day? One thing: it was in perfect sync with our needs. Every craving was satisfied. We were the recipients of loving compassion and thanks to our hard work and perseverance, we felt significant. Or maybe that's just me and all you needed was a final season of Game of Thrones that would have made George R. R. Martin proud. To each their own.

Wouldn't it be nice to have a map of your needs? Something that tells you what you need to focus on to have these kinds of days not by chance, but by design? Well, lucky you! I happen to have exactly what you've dreamed of, and all of that for the low price of 29.99$! Nah, just kidding, it's free. Scroll down and profit. But remember: it's a recipe, just reading it won't satiate you, only trying it for yourself will.

What you'll need

• 1 hour (preferably split up into multiple sessions)
• Pen - preferably multiple colors - and paper (or adequate digital alternatives)
• List of typical needs (see below or look one up online)

Guide

Step 1: Find needs that you resonate with

Coming up with a prioritized list of personal needs is no easy task. Some of you might be able to just write it down from the top of your head (if you are one of them, please let me know and teach me your ways!), but the vast majority - myself included - could use some form of kickstart. That's where a list of typical needs comes in handy.

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Go through the list, and you will find some of them resonate with you more than others. Think about what you need in order to be content, happy, and fulfilled. Maybe you already know you've neglected some specific need recently, or it speaks to you for any other reason. If you printed the list of needs, mark the ones that stand out. Otherwise, write them down. Don't feel obligated to select needs just because you are supposed to value them (for instance, based on social norms financial success and traveling are ought to be high on your list) and instead make sure to only filter out the ones that mean something to you in particular. This is your personal list of needs. No one is going to evaluate it or check if you've made the "right" choice.

One thing to note: If you are lucky enough to not having to worry about basic needs such as food, water, and safety in the foreseeable future, feel free to ignore them.

Once you went over the whole list, go through the ones you've highlighted. Do they encapsulate everything that's important to you? Is something missing? Add it. Maybe you don't completely agree with a certain phrasing or the choice of words? Change it. Something feels too broad and generic? Split things up and add some details. There might also be some clusters of needs, which feel closely related and actually hard to distinguish/separate. Group them as a single item on the list.

If your list contains more than ~15 items (and it probably will), go through it one more time, applying the same thought process again. Which ones stand out? Mark/highlight them. If on the other hand, your list contains less than ~10 items, you might have been too strict. You might want to add additional needs or break down some of the more generic terms.

At this point, I'd suggest taking a break. Do something else for a while or come back a day later. Once your mind is reset, take another look at your list of needs and make adjustments. Some of your initial choices were likely biased towards how you felt at that very moment, which would limit the usefulness of this list later on.

Step 2: Rank your needs

Now it's time to rank your needs based on how important they are to you. This will make the next step a lot easier.

Do you have a post-it at hand? Perfect! I think we should be friends, post-its are an essential item in every household. Small pieces of paper you can write on and rearrange will do as well. Otherwise, just try the pen and paper method. But make sure to go buy some post-its anyway!

Post-it method

Each of your 10-15 personal needs gets its own post-it. Start by taking one and sticking it on the middle of a wall, table, whatever. Then take the next one and compare it to the previous need. Gun to your head - which one is more essential for your overall wellbeing? Imagine you could only satisfy one of them for a day, which would it be? The winner is now on rank 1, the one that's more expandable on rank 2.

Continue with the rest of the post-its. Compare each with every other need that already has a rank. Place the post-it at a position that feels right based on how much the need means to you. You will have a hard time with some of them, just know it's also fine to have multiple needs with the same priority.

Pen and paper method

Take a piece of paper, and start by writing down the first need roughly in the center. Try to pick one that falls somewhere in the middle when it comes to importance. Then pick the next one and compare it to the previous need. Gun to your head - which one is more essential for your overall wellbeing? Imagine you could only satisfy one of them for a day, which would it be? If you would choose the second one, write it down somewhere in the upper half of the paper. If not, this means it's less important and should go in the lower half.

Continue with the rest of the needs you picked in step 1. Compare each with every other need that you already wrote down. Higher positions indicate high priority, and lower positions the opposite. You will have a hard time with some of them, just know it's also fine to have multiple needs with the same priority.

Step 3: Visualize it!

Humans are visual creatures, so instead of just a bland prioritized list of needs, wouldn't it be nice to have your needs mapped out in a way that makes it immediately obvious how you tick and what you should focus on to feel more satisfied in your day to day life? I'm just going to assume you agree, so let's continue.

Grab a piece of paper, and mark the center with an "X". This is you. The goal is to arrange the needs around you such that the closer a certain need is to you, the more it contributes to your happiness. Next, divide the paper into sections for all of your needs, and label the sections with their corresponding need. Imagine the circle around the center as a kind of clock, put the top priority need at 12:00, and continue clockwise from there.

Now the fun part begins! We want to map the comfort zone for each need. We're getting a little abstract here, so please bear with me. Here's a few examples of what it would mean for a need to be within its comfort zone:

• You are totally content in regard to this need
• Time spent on this need is energizing, but you're not desperately trying to maximize it.
• You might even barely think about it since everything is totally fine. You don't need to exert a lot of energy to get this need met.

For instance, let's take something like sexuality. If your sex life is thriving, you're not constantly thinking about your next chance to get laid. What would the lower limit for this kind of satisfaction be? How does this lower limit compare to other needs? Being separated from your significant other (or however you get your sexual needs met) for a week might or might not result in a mental breakdown caused by sexual withdrawal, just like being forced to stay indoors, unable to enjoy the beauty of nature, might cause insufferable depression. Or it might not, depending on your lower limit for this need.

Not only does each of your needs have a lower limit, but there is also a kind of upper limit as well. Depending on the specifics, there might be "too much of a good thing". Imagine craving harmony, and all of a sudden everyone forgets how negative emotions work and humanity spends the rest of eternity peacefully holding hands. You might feel creeped out by this scenario, so there's actually something like an upper limit when it comes to your desire for harmony. Alternatively, this upper limit can be looked at as a point where the ROI (return on investment) flattens out. Sure it's comforting to know that you don't need to worry about your job for the next 50 years. But would guaranteed job security for the next millennium add anything on top? Probably not, unless you're an immortal being, in which case: Why the hell do you still care about your job?

These upper and lower limits outline the comfort zone. It's no exact science, so don't get lost in trying to compare whether your ability to shrug off two sexless weeks means that you actually care less about sexuality than about being independent, since you couldn't stand moving back in with your parents for a single week. Think of it as a guestimate, and when in doubt, go with your gut.

Indicate these upper and lower limits on your map. The closer the upper limit is to the center (aka you) the more joy you get out of high levels of need satisfaction. The further away the lower limit, the more resilient you are to this need not being met. Here are a few examples:

• A small blob directly next to the center: This need isn't easily satisfied and needs high levels of attention. Even short instances of neglect have an immediate and noticeable negative impact on your emotional wellbeing. Think of essentials such as sleep, food, and shelter, or peaceful family life if you're struggling with PTSD in that regard.
• A small blob further away from the center: This can be interpreted as a need that is either satisfied or not, and higher levels of need satisfaction might be nice, but don't really improve your mood. Financial security might fit that category for some people. Either you worry about your financial stability, or you don't, all the while not caring about the things money can buy except for the bare minimum.
• An elongated blob covering a large distance from the center to the outer edge. The levels of need satisfaction correlate quite closely with how good you feel on any given day. Imagine being praised for hard work. It's not extremely essential, you might even be ok without anyone telling you something like "great job!" for years, but imagine hearing it every other day, you would be thrilled and motivated! As long as it's sincere and feels deserved of course.

Once you're done mapping the individual comfort zones, it's time to think about how you feel right now. Are your needs met? Which ones? And which are the biggest outliers? In order to do that, go through each need once more, and mark the current level of satisfaction with a black dot. Ask yourself what it would feel like to be truly content in that area, and compare it to your current day-to-day life. Did you neglect the need long enough for it to bring you active discomfort? Then you're probably well outside the comfort zone.

Step 4: Aligning current and target state

This one isn't as straightforward as the other steps, and I think you did a great job already and deserve a break. Pat yourself on the back, bask in the glory of your own map of needs, and stay tuned for next week's recipe, where I will outline how this map will guide you toward better days.

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