#36 - Boundaries Quick Tips #2 - Needs & Wants: What’s the Difference?

This week's episode is the second in a series I started last month—Boundaries Quick Tips. These short, laser-focused episodes will give you quick tips and tools for learning about, or upleveling, your understanding and practice of healthy boundaries. This Quick Tips episode is an answer to a listener’s question about how to identify needs and wants. You’ll also learn how to tell the difference between needs and wants.

Biggest Takeaways From Episode #36:

• A want is something that is desired or wished for. A need is vital or crucial, either to our physical, mental, emotional, or spiritual survival, or to the survival of a relationship.
• Knowing the 11 basic needs can help you figure out whether those needs are being met for you. These needs are: adequate food, adequate clothing, adequate shelter, physical nurturing, emotional nurturing, spirituality, education, money, medical attention (including mental health treatment), dental attention, and sexual expression.
• Start with this basic list when you’re trying to determine your needs and wants. Ask yourself whether these needs are being met, and how they could be met if they’re not.
• You have extra challenges in identifying your needs—and wants—if your needs weren’t adequately taken care of in your childhood.

Highlights from Episode #36:

• This Quick Tips episode addresses a listener’s question about identifying your needs and wants, and what the difference is. [01:09]
• Vicki defines needs and wants, then explores the difference between wants and needs. [04:09]
• We hear about the 11 basic needs, the first several of which involve physical needs. [05:66]
• The next two needs involve nurturing. [09:49]
• Vicki talks about the needs for spirituality, education, money, and medical and dental attention. [12:52]
• The 11th and final need is the need for sexual expression, Vicki explains. [16:00]
• Vicki offers advice on using this list of needs to determine the areas in which you’re not getting what you need. [17:33]
• We learn more about wants, and how to identify yours. [18:39]

Links and Resources:

• Vicki Tidwell Palmer
• Moving Beyond Betrayal by Vicki Tidwell Palmer
• 5-Step Boundary Solution Clarifier
• Abraham Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs
• Pia Mellody
• The Center for Nonviolent Communication’s Needs Inventory