No one likes to be needy but we all do have needs and it’s important that you get what you need in your relationship. That’s what I want to offer today: some help in figuring out what your needs are and the first step in getting those needs met.

If you not getting your needs met in your relationship and you want to be able to more effectively ask for what you need in a relationship, this video will walk you through the steps to do that.

Last week I made a video all about the importance of figuring out exactly what you’re feeling when you’re in a relationship and how that can help you have healthier communication in your relationship. So the trick is, once you’ve figured out exactly what you’re feeling, to use that feeling or those feelings to point the way towards your unmet needs and figure out how you can get those needs met.

Difference between a need and a want and a tactic.

Needs are essential to being human. They’re the basic building blocks of being alive, healthy, and thriving.

Things like food, water, shelter, community, independence. Also things like play, creativity, to be seen, to be understood, and on and on and on. They’re things that we all need.

A tactic, on the other hand, is something that we might do or ask others to do in order to get those needs met, and that will vary from person to person and even moment to moment. 

So if you need food you could steal some. 

You could ask your neighbor for some.

You could get a job to make money to go buy some.

If your need for intimacy isn’t being met, you might try and meet that by asking your boyfriend to buy you flowers, by playing a grinder-free movie night at home, by going out and getting a couple’s massage at a fancy spa. 

A want is usually just a tactic framed in a different way. 

So, “I want you to buy me flowers because I want to have my need for intimacy, warmth, trust, harmony met,” you know, things like that. 

Whether those wants and tactics will actually get your needs met is of course another question entirely, so sometimes it takes a little bit of trial and error. 

If you focus on the need rather than the want or the tactic, you’re ultimately going to be more successful, more satisfied. 

Here’s why the distinction between needs and tactics are important:

Your partner might want to help you get your needs met in whatever is lacking, but they might not want to do the specific thing that you’re asking him, the tactic that you’ve narrowed in on to get that need met.

In a relationship, compromise is important, and it’s also okay to be a little bit uncomfortable because, or for your partner sometimes. But you might find that you’re able to get your needs met even more effectively or your partner will be even more excited about that or able to do it better if you focus on the needs and use that as an opportunity for some creative collaboration to figure this out together, by focusing on the needs and coming up together with the tactics to meet that. 

This is an opportunity for collaboration rather than sort of competing agendas against each other. 

Once you know what you need, the next step is to make a request of your partner to help you get those needs met. I’ll be sharing how you can do that in the most effective way possible next. Make sure that you’re subscribed on YouTube. Or say hello and I’ll send you an email when it’s out!