Feeling stuck? Take a few minutes to look under the hood.

For all of the moms out there who feel stalled or stuck on their journey to career fulfillment - unidentified and unmet needs might be what’s holding you back. Taking a few minutes each day to ‘look under the hood’ and see what needs aren’t being met could make a big difference

One of the keys to career fulfillment is meeting our needs. How can we feel fulfilled when our needs aren’t met?

In Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, self-actualization, and transcendence are set on top of a base of six different kinds of needs. That’s a lot of needs that need to be met on the road to self-actualization.

The good news is: the more our needs are met, the better we feel and the more powerful we become.

The bad news is: when our needs aren’t met, our bodies, and most particularly our minds are distracted by hunger or thirst. On a physiological level, this is literal, but Maslow also lists five other categories of needs including emotional, cognitive, and aesthetic, that need to be met on the journey to self-actualization.?

In other words, we have essential needs for fulfillment that are related to how we feel; what we’re thinking about; and the environment we are in.?

I know how hard it is for moms to meet our needs.?

First of all, we’re so focused on taking care of other people’s needs that we aren’t usually paying attention to our own. We’re not practiced at noticing our own needs – or even registering them.?

Secondly, I believe all moms have felt the discouragement of wanting our needs met and not having that happen. That’s a definite deterrent for thinking about our needs.

Thirdly, needs feel like burdens when we already feel tapped out. In exhausted, time-scarce states, learning about any needs, including our own, feels like something additional to handle that we lack the resources for.

And then there’s the issue of the belief that having needs = being needy. And that being needy means being weak and/or undesirable.?

This pairing of needy and weak has been a big obstacle to me even recognizing my needs.?

It’s really hard to recognize something that you’re avoiding seeing.

Needs are a thorny issue for everyone and for moms in particularly challenging ways.?

All the same, we need to meet our needs in order to feel more fulfilled in our careers, in our lives. In fact, it is by meeting our needs that we begin to feel more fulfilled in our careers.?

I’ve discovered that Maslow's Hierarchy isn’t just helping us diagnose the problem of feeling unfilled, it’s also giving us a map up the mountain to fulfillment.

Dr. Ross W. Greene provides us with reliable directions there.

In his books? “Raising Human Beings” and “The Explosive Child”, Greene endorses the practice of recognizing and then meeting our needs when faced with problems to solve.? His model is parenting-focused. I’ve adapted it for addressing our individual problems.?

It goes like this:

1. When you are feeling frustration and/or disappointment (or shortly after), recognize the feelings as representing unmet needs.
2. Feel compassion for yourself for the challenges and pain you’re facing because these needs remain unmet.
3. Brainstorm the unmet needs that feel related to your frustration and/or disappointment.
4. Brainstorm solutions related to meeting this need.

It sounds complicated right now, but it’s actually like driving. Once you practice it a lot, the process becomes more seamless and you start to regularly recognize the needs that come up for you, giving more information about what’s essential for you to feel fulfilled.

Mine include:

Connecting with my kids each day

Connecting with my partner each day

Learning

Appreciation

Feeling understood

Feeling like I understand

Conversations about books, decision-making, parenting, fulfillment, Jewish mythology, and writing.

There are way more, but you get the idea.

In some ways, understanding our needs in greater detail can be overwhelming. The challenge of actually filling all of our needs can feel impossible and discouraging.?

But, if we want to feel more fulfilled in our careers and in our lives, then solving the problems of filling our needs is essential.

The good news is that we don’t need to change a whole lot. We simply need to practice feeling compassion for how we feel when our needs are not met and getting curious about what they are.?

Even a little practice each day will make a big difference.?

That’s what we’re going to do this week (March 20-25) in The Flourish to Fulfilling Daily - Flourishing Moms’ free daily email helping moms on the journey to career fulfillment tap into inner strengths essential for navigating with clarity and courage.?

This week, each email contains a 5-minute thinking/journaling activity for practicing the process of 1) recognizing when our needs aren’t being met, 2) offering ourselves compassion, and then 3) getting clearer about the details of our needs and the possible solutions.?

Let’s look under our hoods and see what our needs are. We can’t meet them if we don’t see them.

Get ready to uncover some of the reasons why you’re stuck and give yourself more of what you need.?

It’s easier to practice together than alone : ) Sign-up here to get the free emails each day.

P.S. If you're interested in applying Dr. Ross W. Greene's work to navigating the journey to career fulfillment, check out last week's article, "Moms' careers do well when we can."