How to Separate Your Wants From Your Needs

We live in an age of going, doing, acquiring, and achieving. We set high standards and ambitious goals. We want to do the best for our families, our clients, our friends, and our community. We expect a lot from ourselves and others.

Sometimes, we can become overwhelmed by our perfectionism, impossible standards, expectations, and goals. The demands we place on ourselves and our relationships can cause us to overextend, and disregard our health and self-care. We become overwhelmed. We suffer from low self-esteem, stress, anxiety, and burnout, which take a devastating toll on our work, our relationships, and our mental and physical health.

The Consequences of Impossible Standards and Goals

We self-scrutinize, self-criticize, and exhaust ourselves, mentally, physically, and emotionally. Why do we push ourselves to do, acquire, attain and achieve so much? Why are we so hard on ourselves? A 2018 New York Times article by Charlotte Lieberman offers interesting insights from Dr. Richard Davidson, founder, and director of the Center for Healthy Minds at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He says:

Self-criticism can take a toll on our minds and bodies. It can lead to ruminative thoughts that interfere with our productivity, and it can impact our bodies by stimulating inflammatory mechanisms that lead to chronic illness and accelerate aging.

The conditions we place upon ourselves to feel successful, happy, safe, content, and worthy of love are endless. And while we’re hard-wired to deal with stress in small doses, living with pervasive stress—much of which is the result of the conditions we place upon ourselves—takes a toll on virtually every part of the body and our mental health. In short, we’re making ourselves sick and tired.

To achieve more balance and sustain and maintain our lives, we need to identify what we want and what we need and begin to separate our wants—that is, to say what would be nice to have or achieve or be—from what we truly need.

Wants Versus Needs

Many people are familiar with American psychologist Abraham Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, which divides human needs into five general categories, beginning with basic physical or physiological needs, the need for safety and security, the need for love and a sense of belonging, the need for esteem, and aspirational, self-actualizing needs. Maslow lists these needs in ascending order. When basic needs are met, we move on and pursue more advanced needs. The Hierarchy of Needs can provide a valuable touchstone to help us reflect on identifying our wants versus our needs.

Separating your wants from your needs may seem like an impossible task, but it’s a lot more straightforward than you might think:

• Step 1: Make a complete, exhaustive list of what you want…for your home, for your children if you have children, in your career, from your partner, for your self-care, and for your spirituality (how you feel in your own company). List all the things you would like to accomplish in a day. Put it all down. Leave nothing out.

• Step 2: Take a long, hard look at every item in every category. Think about what you need right now, versus what you want. You might want that corner office and the huge salary increase, but right now, with all that you are balancing in terms of taking care of your family and having time and energy for yourself, what do you actually need? Be honest with yourself. If that next step up the career ladder is going to result in burnout, maybe it’s not what you need right now. Once you’ve identified your needs in each category, underline them. If all that you would like to achieve in a day would require that day to consist of 48 hours, take a long hard look at what truly needs your attention and what can wait.

  Wants versus needs from your partner or spouse: Just as with your life tasks, personal goals, and lists of material things that you want in your life, you can make a laundry list of everything you would like your partner to be. And just as with other categories, separate the nice-to-have wants from the must-have, deal-breaker needs. It might be nice to have someone who takes the initiative on household tasks, anticipates your needs, and makes a special effort to plan exciting weekend getaways, but maybe what you need right now is the person who makes you laugh, shares your love of old movies, and appreciates you for who you are, not what you do or have. The rest can be a work in progress. Identify what you need right now.

• Step 3: Use this list of needs to plan your days, your week, and your year. Keep your wants in mind, but focus on your needs, your self-care, and your well-being.

Revisit your wants, needs, and goals regularly. Add and reimagine as your goals and circumstances change, and you begin to factor your well-being and self-care into the equation of your life. Remember, we are at once perfect and a work in progress. Focusing on what you need right now will keep you on track and in good health, mind, body, and spirit.