Is growth one of your core needs?

With a bit of luck right now I’m feeling the sun on my face, feet in the sand as I meditate during sunrise—hoping it won’t rain.

I’m in Mexico for the 10-day Advanced Follow Up Retreat from Dr. Joe Dispenza. (You can read my experience with his 7-day retreat here.) I do my best to attend at least one new event or online program per year to ensure I continue growing.

I love learning new things. It’s one of the perks of running my own business. I get to decide what I focus on and which new skill I develop or choose to deepen. I believe it’s not just fun but crucial to stay relevant and healthy.

In addition to the joy of learning new things, I’m convinced that continuous personal and skill development is crucial for everyone. If we don’t grow and evolve, we eventually wither and die. That’s simply a rule of nature.

But I realize not everyone is as fond of growth as I am. 🙂 I think that’s tied to the six human needs as described by Tony Robbins. I first learned about this during his four-day event in London a decade ago.

What are the six human needs

These are the six human needs as Tony Robbins describes them:

1. Certainty: assurance you can avoid pain and gain pleasure
2. Uncertainty/Variety: the need for the unknown, change, new stimuli
3. Significance: feeling unique, important, special or needed
4. Connection/Love: a strong feeling of closeness or union with someone or something
5. Growth: an expansion of capacity, capability or understanding
6. Contribution: a sense of service and focus on helping, giving to and supporting others

The first four needs shape your personality. The order in which you rank these needs are different for everyone. There are different ways to meet a need—and how you go about fulfilling a need is what makes it beneficial or detrimental.

We usually have two needs that are most dominant and those shape our decisions and behavior the most.

If certainty is your primary need, you’ll try to keep things the same or control everything and that’s likely to cause a lot of stress.

When you’re always looking for variety, you may switch jobs or relationships for the sake of variety or take unnecessary risks for the thrill or adrenaline boost.

If significance is one of your top two needs, then you like to be noticed and tend to compare yourself to others. Recognition is a driving force in what you do.

When connection or love is one of your core needs, you’re always seeking close connections—even at the risk of sacrificing yourself to take care of others.

When your two dominant needs come from these first four, it’s easier to lose touch with yourself. Whether it’s through control, pushing through, comparison, ignoring your own needs or jumping from one person or project to the next. If you’re not balanced, meeting these needs can come at a price.

The last two human needs define your spiritual needs. And these are the only two that have no real downside. And it probably won’t surprise you that growth is one of my main needs. 🙂

If you want to dive deeper into these needs, you can read more about this framework at Tony Robbins’s site.

The need for growth

If growth is a core need for you, then you’ll always want to learn more and become better. Chances are you have perfectionistic tendencies (Who, me?) and find it hard to prioritize taking rest. That means you need to keep an eye on your stress levels.

These are indications that growth is one of your core needs, according to Robbins:

• You tend to push boundaries, both your own and those set by others.
• You’re very independent.
• You might find it hard to connect with others (and move on too quickly from relationships.)

I personally don’t recognize that last trait but wanted to include it for comprehensiveness.

You can fulfill your need for growth not just by learning new things but by challenging yourself to truly master a difficult skill. Growth includes emotional and spiritual growth as well.

By the time you read this, the retreat is already wrapping up—and I can’t wait to share my insights with you soon.

Ensuring your growth

I’d like you to take a moment and think back about the things you’ve learned, improved or mastered this year. It could be a new skill, sport or program. Or perhaps you’ve changed a limiting belief, learned to become more present or shift your emotions.

If nothing comes to mind, this is your cue to start thinking about something you’ll invest time and energy (and possibly budget) in for the rest of the year.

Even when growth is not a fundamental need for you, I believe you need to keep evolving—albeit at a slower pace than a growth enthusiast like myself. Because when you stand still for too long, you’ll get behind. Because the law of nature is: when you don’t use it, you’ll lose it.

We’re halfway through the year so this is a great moment to think about what you’ll learn or develop in the coming months.

PS If you’re looking for some inspiration, these stories of transformation might give you ideas on what to focus on.

Iris van Ooyen guides people home to themselves. As a life transformation mentor with 20+ years of experience, she offers hope with a compass—helping you find your way back to who you truly are when life’s demands have made you lose touch with yourself. She’s the author of Radiant: How to Have All the Energy You Need to Live a Life You Love. When you feel life should be more than this, contact Iris to come home to yourself—and love your life again. 

Follow her on LinkedIn and Instagram.