(An unmet Need causes us to feel empty, incomplete, or less than whole. Fulfilling a Need gives us freedom to be ourselves.)


There’s a difference between needing an affirming statement and enjoying one. That emotional difference can be significant. It’s all in how it lands for you.

Any need unmet is on the discomfort scale, high or low. It will attempt to get itself satisfied to lessen or stop the pain of emptiness. Of being unmet, unfilled.

If you need affirmation, it often feels like something is missing. You may seek that from outside yourself. Like an empty stomach receiving food. For a while, all is okay. But like that stomach, soon hungry to be affirmed again.

In this case, you need to have something you think is missing, or that you doubt about yourself, to be affirmed as present in you. When it happens, you feel someone gets who you are.

Once you recognize and resolve your need for affirmation, you become free. Then an affirming statement adds to the joy of connection.


Coaching Point: Can you recall a time when you were affirmed and how it felt?


Copyright 2026 Steve Straus. All rights reserved.