Personality Needs and Spirit Needs — Critical Elements of Your Personal Development

Personal development is a key factor in happiness and satisfaction with your life.

Key Takeaways:

• Humans have six core needs: certainty, uncertainty/variety, significance, connection/love, growth, and contribution.
• We either meet these needs in productive ways or destructive ways, but regardless, we find ways to meet them
• We achieve more fulfillment if we spend time on the two “needs of the spirit” — growth and contribution
• If you don’t know your personality traits, they can direct you in ways you’re not aware of

One of the strangest things about today’s society is how we value attention and status and turn up our noses at complacency and simplicity. The forces behind this — and behind all human actions and emotions — lie within the six fundamental aspects of personal development. The way we develop them throughout life becomes our personality.

Healthy personal development means these facets of life are wholly realized — meaning we know and understand why they exist. When portions don’t develop to their total capability, our personalities lack, and our lives feel unfulfilled. This is especially true with spiritual and relational facets. Unlike intellect, physicality, and emotions, these aspects forge the most profound connection to our authentic selves.

Let’s explore the six facets of personal development and why spiritual and relational growth are so crucial to happiness.

Whole person development

Being a human is complicated. Social life is different from work life, and they’re both different from home life. We are different people in different situations, and we don’t realize — or we ignore the idea — that all areas of life impact each other. In general, a successful life results from balancing all these areas.

There are six significant facets to human life:

• Intellectual: How well we think, solve problems, and employ information
• Physical: How we use sleep, nutrition, and exercise to stay well
• Financial: How well we manage our economic life
• Relational: Our ability to interact with others
• Emotional: Our ability to manage thoughts and feelings
• Spiritual: Our spiritual connectedness

We must see life as a whole experience instead of only breaking it down into these separate facets. This allows us to embrace our whole selves and sets the stage for a stable and abundant life.

We also have to take into account how our personality drives our behaviors and perception of the world. I’m a big tan of the Big 5 personality model that represents the broad areas of our behavior, as it’s generally considered the most psychometrically valid. This is also known as the OCEAN model (sometimes known as the CANOE model), an acronym representing each of the five traits:

• Openness: Creativity and intrigue, open to experience. This trait emphasizes imagination and insight, and people with this trait tend to be more adventurous.
• Conscientiousness: Thoughtfulness, good impulse control, goal-directed behaviors. This trait emphasizes organization, attention to detail, and consideration of how our behaviors impact others.
• Extraversion: Sociability, assertiveness, expressiveness. This trait emphasizes excitement and energy gained from social situations, being energized from being around others.
• Agreeableness: Kindness, trust, affection. This trait emphasizes cooperation, empathy, helping others, and contributing to their happiness.
• Neuroticism: Moodiness, emotional instability. This trait emphasizes anxiety, sadness, irritability, stress, and excess worry.

We all possess each of these traits to some degree — what makes us unique is the degree to which we possess each trait and how we display them in our lives. And our levels of each of these traits are displayed through how to value each of our core personality and spirit needs.

Personality and spirit needs

In addition to the six facets of human life and the five big personality traits, we all have universal needs. In this model, there are six core needs, though their importance varies from person to person:

-Certainty

Assurance that you can avoid pain and gain pleasure. Certainty is the innate need for safety. It is a second-level need, which must be met before other needs, such as friendships and self-esteem, can be addressed.

Certainty drastically affects our behavior. Even if we are incorrect, as long as we are certain of our beliefs, we are far more likely to act.

-Uncertainty/Variety

The need for the unknown, change, and new stimuli. Certainty and variety work to balance each other. Certainty is crucial to growth, but too much leads to a need for variety. The key is to balance the two needs throughout the course of life.

-Significance

Feeling unique, important, special, or needed. Significance is a need for esteem and respect, not just from others but also from yourself. It precedes authentic self-esteem and dignity and is most important for adolescents.

We all need to feel special and stand out in a crowd. We want to know we’re unique and valued. We track our progress and existence by measuring ourselves against our peers and measure our impact and significance by the reflections of our actions and interactions in the world.

-Connection/Love

A strong feeling of closeness or union with someone or something. Once our safety and psychological needs are met, the human mind turns to love. We crave love in all forms, romance, friendship, and familial adoration. We want to be in groups and connect with like-minded peers.

-Growth

An expansion of capacity, capability, or understanding. When all our basic needs are taken care of, we want to explore, learn, and grow. We seek out ways to expand our knowledge base and strengthen our talents. There is an exhilarating freedom in pursuing personal growth.

-Contribution

A sense of service and focus on helping, giving to, and supporting others. With all needs satiated, our minds turn to helping the less fortunate.

Each facet of personal development has a distinct bearing on who you are. The personality needs (the first four on the list — certainty, uncertainty/variety, significance, and connection/love) and spirit needs (the remaining two — growth and contribution) of personal development refer to the quality of our relationships with others and our higher selves.

Personality needs

There are specific actions we can take, both good and bad, to achieve each of our core personality needs. Here are some examples:

-Certainty:

• Productive: Getting a degree, establishing healthy routines
• Unproductive: Smoking/alcohol/drugs, micromanaging

-Uncertainty/Variety:

• Productive: sports, setting goals
• Unproductive: Overeating, creating crisis

-Significance:

• Productive: Generosity, being an expert at something you’re passionate about
• Unproductive: Obsessed with being the best, putting others down when challenged

-Connection/Love:

• Productive: Being in nature, meditating
• Unproductive: Gossiping, complaining

Our personality needs are critical to our well-being, but they’re not all there is. Unfortunately, most of us get stuck focusing on the four core personality needs that we don’t pay enough attention to our spiritual needs.

Spirit needs

Our spirit (and, therefore, our spirituality) is a key component of happiness. It helps find the purpose for life and a connection to the universe. Spirituality looks different for everybody. It can manifest as religion, prayer, meditation, or being in nature.

As with our personality needs, we take specific actions to achieve our core spirit needs as well. Some positive examples include:

-Growth:

• Working out
• Reading
• Peer learning

-Contribution:

• Helping those less fortunate
• Raising well-adjusted children
• Mentoring without a self-serving agenda

Our spirit needs help fulfill many different human roles. It fosters positive relationships, compassion, a sense of purpose, sincerity, hopefulness, and inner peace. These qualities comprise a fundamental part of success and happiness.

Can you imagine a life without growth in these compelling aspects? Life changes when there is nothing but you — no spiritual connection, social circle, or family life means a life with fewer rewards, less joy, and little inner satisfaction.

Personal development will change your life!

If you feel there is more to life than what you’re experiencing, it could be time to assess your personality traits. Strengthening your spiritual and relational connections significantly positively impacts your life, and it’s never too late to start!

Neel Sus is a huge proponent of personal transformation and how it can change the direction of your life, from family situations to romance and work. Check out Neel’s Medium and LinkedIn pages and see all that personal transformation can accomplish.