7 Steps to Identify and Meet Your Needs
Speaking with other mothers, I often hear their needs are not being met and some are so overwhelmed they don’t even know what they need.
With the pressure of family, work, managing everything for everyone and often losing yourself, knowing what you need or where to start can be difficult.
Here are 6 steps to help you work out what you need and how to get those needs met.
1. Identify the Situation Clearly
When reviewing your life and what you need it can help to go through it section by section such as with this life audit.
Write down exactly what’s happening—facts only, without judgment in each area.
How do you feel about it? Where are you holding resentment and why? What do you identify you need more or less of?
Be specific about it to help you create a plan of action that will actually help.
When we are too general it is hard to know what action to take.
As an example, in the past few years I completely lost myself due to teens, their commitments, 3 more pregnancies, toddlers etc. It was a lot and I could not clearly identify what I needed but I knew I could not continue this way.
I looked at each area of my life and what I needed.
Health: I have a few health issues, had gained a lot of weight since moving to this area and was the unhealthiest I have ever been.
Work: I was not getting the time I needed, I didn’t have a dedicated space or proper work plan. I was unclear on which direction I wanted to take and instead was taking the easy way out with doing the bare minimum on things I knew generated income.
Family: I was doing too much for everyone, not prioritising myself but also making it harder for my kids to shift to adulthood because I was doing more (my eldest is 18 in a few months).
Those are a few examples but you get the idea.
2. Define the Goal or Desired Outcome
Once you know what you need, think about what you want to achieve or resolve.
Using my examples above in health and work, here is what I defined.
Health: I needed a clear workout routine, time to workout and a few items such as activewear, weights, a yoga mat and space to do the workout. I also needed meals prepped such as lunches because I wouldn’t eat otherwise and then I would crave junk in the afternoon.
I focused on lifestyle changes to improve PCOS, lose weight and help my heart.
The desired outcome with my health was to lose weight, reduce PCOS symptoms, increase longevity as well as endurance, strength and mobility. I want to live a long, healthy life for my kids.
Side note: due to this focus, my health improved drastically in a short space of time, resulting in an unexpected pregnancy! Check out how I fell pregnant despite severe PCOS and other health issues.
Work: I needed everyone to respect my work hours, no interruptions and no one at home. Time to work out exactly what I wanted to do with my work, eliminate the things not related to it. Space for my work so it was ready to go when I had time to work.
Too often during the time my youngest two are at daycare, I’d do all the errands, paperwork and whatever everyone else needed which left limited time to work.
Since I wasn’t respecting my own time, why would anyone else in the house?
3. Assess Your Feelings and Reactions
How does the situation make you feel? Why does it make you feel that way?
What are your responses because of how this makes you feel?
Understanding your emotional response can reveal underlying needs.
Continuing with my examples, I felt fat, ugly, worthless, unhealthy, uncomfortable, invisible and that I’d likely have an early death. My mother died at 37, my paternal grandparents in their early 60s so I had real examples of my potential future. I’ve also had paralysis, multiple surgeries and other health issues so the need to focus on my health is strong.
I felt this way about my health because no one was helping me make it a priority but I was expected to be there for everyone else.
As a result, I gave up on myself and got to quite a low point.
Once I recognised this and the fact that I am the only one who can enforce the boundaries around my time, I made drastic changes.
When it came to my work, I felt disrespected, unimportant and immense pressure to make money despite having no time to work.
4. List the Gaps
What’s missing? Is it information, support, clarity, resources, or boundaries?
In my case, with my health and work, a lack of boundaries was the biggest gap.
Once I set clear boundaries around my time and stuck to my routines, my family adjusted and supported what I was doing.
Look at what you have identified as your need or issue, what needs to change and how you can change it.
Along with boundaries, we had large gaps in housework and expectations on me.
Establishing who was doing what around the house and refusing to step in for anyone made a significant difference.
5. Prioritise Your Needs
There are likely to be more than 1 or 2 things you want to change or needs that are not being met.
It can be tempting to try to overhaul everything and implement large changes but they can be hard to stick to.
Separate urgent needs from things that can wait while having a plan for how to implement it all eventually.
What do you need to change now? Which things are easy to change to help you get your needs met?
Focus on those things and work on implementing the rest.
With my health, it was easy to get the items I wanted and set the alarm to get up at 5am to do my routine properly.
Implementing the changes for work have been harder and slower but my main priority was my health so I was ok with that.
6. Seek Perspective if Needed
Talk to someone you trust or journal it out to get a clearer view.
Sometimes when we are too close to it all, emotions take over and it can be hard to create a clear picture of what we need or see things from all perspectives.
Talking to someone you trust can help you sort through everything and create a clear plan.
Writing things in a journal can help you get clear on your needs yourself and often helps you see things you missed.
7. Take Action
Create a plan to address the needs you’ve identified, one step at a time and start.
Take it a day at a time, review what’s working and what isn’t, what you can control and what you can’t and adapt accordingly.
Whatever action you have decided on, be consistent and eventually others will see and help or you will see how much damage they are causing.
I have a 10 step method to success with goals that can help you with this part.
Check out 17 changes I made to get myself out of a rut and increase my happiness for ideas.
Also these 11 changes we made to make our life easier with autism, ADHD etc.
What needs do you have and how did you make changes to ensure they were met?
Resources
Here are all the articles and resources mentioned:
How I fell pregnant despite severe PCOS and other health issues
10 step method to success with goals
17 changes I made to get myself out of a rut and increase my happiness
11 changes we made to make our life easier with autism, ADHD etc
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