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Being Well Podcast: Discovering Your Wants and Needs
September 19, 2022

What do you actually want? In this week’s episode of the Being Well Podcast, we talk about the wants and needs we all have — and especially those that we find difficult to identify. Listen and reflect to discover your own wants and needs, and take practical steps to achieve meeting those needs.

Everyone has wants and needs, but many people find it difficult to identify what authentically matters to them. Even when we can identify them, shame or fear often stops us from expressing those wants and needs to others or taking the practical steps that would help us achieve them.

Meeting our wants and needs is a major source of well-being, and people who can identify their wants and needs are more likely to get them met. On today’s episode of Being Well, Forrest and I focus on how to look inside, and figure out what you really need. We discuss different frameworks for categorizing our needs, what to do when we are confused by our desires, and how to get in touch with your true desires.

Key Topics:

  • 0:00: Introduction
  • 2:05: Common features among people who struggle to name their wants and needs
  • 7:05: Three basic steps to relate to wants and needs
  • 8:00: Different frameworks for categorizing wants and needs
  • 21:00: What helped Rick get in touch with his own wants and needs?
  • 28:00: An experiential exercise
  • 35:10: Why addressing your needs and wants is not just naval gazing
  • 38:40: Forrest’s suggestions, based on his own experience
  • 45:25: What to do when what we want is probably not best for us
  • 51:40: Creating a personal manifesto
  • 54:30: Recap

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