As I begin to write this posting I have a sneaking susipcion that I may have written it already and still, this is a topic that comes up again and again and again:  what is it that you really want?  Coaching helps people to clarify what they really want and, at the same time, it is not unusual for my clients to find it challenging to tune into their desires.  This posting is prompted by conversations with one such client and also supports recent postings.

Firstly, let’s clarify one thing.  What is the difference between “wants” and “needs”?  The school of NLP (to which I shall return below) offers the question “what do you want?” whilst the school of nonviolent communication (or NVC) talks about needs.  What’s the difference?  In truth, when we drill down far enough we get beyond the surface manifestations of our desires to understand the needs that (we think) would be met if were to have what we want.  This is the difference between the promotion or the big flash car (the strategy by which we plan to meet our needs) and the sense that we are seen and admired (the need we hope to meet by that strategy).  It helps to understand the underlying need as a way to test the strategy by which we plan to meet it – is the promotion (or… insert your own strategy here) the right tool for the job?

But how do we test our true needs?  NLP (I said I would return to NLP) offers a neat questioning strategy to do this.  The first question is simple:  “what do I want?”  So far so good – often the answer expresses a strategy rather than the needs that lie beneath the strategy.  So, the second question probes further:  “what would that do for me?”  By repeating the second question we come ever closer to identifying the underlying needs we are hoping to meet.

My client asked me what she might be looking for when she identifies a need so I offer a link to the needs identified by Marshall Rosenberg and colleagues on the Center for Nonviolent Communication (see needs list).  Key to this list is the non-specific nature of each need.  When we understand that our underlying need is for support, for example, we are no longer bound to meet it in one and only one way.  We can start to get creative.  What support do we need?  And what (multiple) forms might that support take that would meet our need?

There are at least two good signs that we have understood our needs.  The first is that we have gone beyond any physical manifestation of our need to identify something that does not have physical form (such as love, or respect or honesty).  A second good sign is the feeling that accompanies this identification of our need.  I experience this as a kind of “coming home”, a moment when I become calm and contented even when the need has yet to be met.

And yes, this is an amazing thing about identifying our needs in this way.  By being present to our needs we have a sense of fullness rather than a sense of lack.  In the world of nonviolent communication, Robert Gonzales and colleagues describe this as the living energy of needs.