We all have wants and needs. We are all human. The thing is, if we don’t get what we want’ then it doesn’t set up a self destructive circuit. Unfortunately, if we don’t satisfy our needs, then things can and do go wrong.
However, if we learn to recognize our needs, meet them and understand how they affect us, then we can achieve great things.
The thing is, emotions tell us all we need to know about our needs.
One analogy for emotions and feelings telling you something is to imagine a phone ringing in your head. On the other end is your real need that needs addressed. Simple enough – all you need to do is to pick up the phone and answer it, right?
Of course – the problems occur when most people either ignore the ringing, complain about the irritating noise, pick up the wrong phone or even answer the phone and shout down the receiver that they don’t have the time to talk!
Heres a question – do you think that the above actions will meet the need? Not a chance!
Do you think that the unmet need will magically disappear? No way!
So what happens? The body, mind and nervous system enter a state of stress. This stress may be minor – but as you are aware, all stress added together causes a lot of problems – both physical and emotional. At the extremes of performance – be it at an athletic level or a normal everyday task level – the most basic actions may well be beyond reach if real needs aren’t met.
Lets look at an example of this before looking at some principles of performance.
Imagine you have a busy day planned. You have several meetings and a sales presentation to give. You wake up in the morning realizing you overslept – this was due to the long hours put in over the last week preparing for the days activities. You jump out of bed, skip breakfast and dash out to the first meeting. You take all your paperwork into the meeting with you and realize that as you aren’t required to give an in depth analysis, you really don’t need it. You feel a bit sheepish as people smile at your arms clutching a ton of paper.
You leave the meeting and rush to your presentation. You arrive very hot, very thirsty and very harassed. You still feel bad about looking a fool at the last meeting. The sales presentation goes fine until you ask for the order. At his point you get a bit too defensive when answering client concerns. You don’t get the order.
The rest of the meetings come and go but you don’t really participate. You are too busy worrying about the failure you are responsible for in that you didn’t get the order. The rest of the day drifts by. At the end of the day, you arrive home and start to work on the next busy meetings day. After all, it has to go better.
OK, if we had regular days like this we would lose our minds – the stress levels would be horrendous. But there is a lot to be learned from this situation. The main thing to look for is how things deteriorated due to the real needs of the person not being met.
Lets look at the start of the day. How easy is it to function with no food? Even an elite level marathon runner would struggle if they fasted for a few days prior to a big race. On a more real level, the brain needs sugar to function properly. No sugar equals forgetfulness, slower reaction times and inability to concentrate. In this instance, the phone was ringing and the voice at the other end would have said “Get some food and eat”. This need wasn’t met and the consequence was not so much about arriving at the meeting with too much paperwork, but more to do with the kicking your self esteem got as you felt like the village fool!
The list goes on and on – the need to drink, the need to rest, the need to feel valued and the need to have a high level of self-esteem.
I want you to think of a person whom you admire – a person who is a real go-getter. A person who is successful. Do these people meet their real needs? I would say yes’ they do. The thing is, they have realized something that not a lot of people know – the secret is not to meet all your needs when they arise – that would leave no time to achieve our goals. Instead, they recognize the need and if there is nothing they can do on the spot, they will meet that need as soon as they can.
Sounds so simple doesn’t it? I must admit to taking a while before this dawned on me – but it makes perfect sense. I now want to look at some principles concerning meeting needs as a way of reinforcing what I have said to date.
Principle 1 – the most natural state is positive. The body and mind will try to achieve this state at all times. If you have a need, it is something that needs to be done to move you from a negative state to a positive one.
Principle 2 – emotions are the eyes and ears of the body. Your emotions will tell you what you need to know to meet your needs. They will tell you whether you are hungry, thirsty, tired, feeling low, fragile in the self esteem department etc.
Principle 3 – decoding the messages is a vital skill. In order for you to make the best use of your emotions, you really need to move toward understanding what you are being told. This means a lot of thought and self examination. Stick in though – the rewards are great!
Principle 4 – need fulfillment brings recovery. In order to perform well each day, we need to recover from the rigors of the previous days activities. If you neglect the needs you have, you won’t recover. This linear stress will result in a build up of stress that won’t help you at all. Linear stress leads to something breaking – fact.
There are a few other principles but these are the main ones. The golden rule from this is to remain sensitive to your needs but don’t let them control you. If you need to eat, and you can then eat. If you can’t eat at that point then you need to put your need to one side and focus on what you need to do. As soon as you can, eat. That is the way that people who are genuinely tough will deal with needs.
People who are tough will always succeed where others fail.
Stuart McAleese,
stuartmcaleese@yahoo.co.uk