Before we begin you need to know the 5 needs: 

Safety, comfort, autonomy, belonging, and competency.

Why It Matters:

Understanding motivation is essential because it drives real engagement—and without real engagement, meaningful learning doesn’t happen. When people aren’t motivated or engaged, they’re less likely to learn from mistakes, retain important information, or put in the effort to creatively problem-solve and tackle obstacles that lead to growth. By understanding motivation, we gain insight into what it truly takes to engage our students and help them learn. And to really grasp motivation, we have to dig into the factors that influence it.

Over the past six years, I’ve studied motivation extensively, focusing on Ryan and Deci’s Self-Determination Theory, which is the gold standard for understanding intrinsic motivation. When I first started, I was looking at it through the lens of teacher motivation—specifically, how boosting motivation in the classroom could help reduce burnout and improve teacher retention.

In the past three years, I’ve shifted my focus to studying motivation in the context of students and learning. This work led me to develop the Meet the Needs framework, which highlights the five essential needs for student engagement in the classroom. These five needs are the foundation of motivation, and motivation impacts every other aspect of life in the classroom—for both students and teachers.

When any of these needs go unmet, it affects students’ psychological and emotional stability, which has a direct impact on their motivation and behavior. Understanding and addressing these needs isn’t just important—it’s necessary for creating an environment where learning and growth can truly happen.

The five needs are: Safety, Comfort, Autonomy, Belonging, and Competency.

Now, think about each of these needs and how they influence your motivation at work. For example, if you lack autonomy and feel micromanaged, are you motivated to give your best effort? Probably not. A lack of autonomy can even affect how you feel about your boss and the organization as a whole. Autonomy is absolutely CRUCIAL for individual motivation, but the same applies to the other four needs.

Each need plays an equally important role in keeping you motivated. When even one is missing, it can impact not only how you approach your work but also how you feel about the environment you’re working in—and it’s no different for our students in the classroom.

Think about all five needs—Safety, Comfort, Autonomy, Belonging, and Competency—and how they influence both the work you do and how you feel while doing it. Now, ask yourself: which one could be missing from your job, and you’d still feel motivated to do your best work?

It’s tough, isn’t it? Because you can’t just drop one. Each need is vital. They all work together to keep you motivated and engaged.

The same goes for our students. They’re human, just like us, with human brains that depend on these five needs for motivation. It’s not optional—Human Brain = 5 Needs. When we meet these needs, we unlock the potential for growth, engagement, and learning.

Who does it influence and how?

When these needs are chronically unmet, anxiety, depression, and burnout start to creep in.

Take teachers, for example. If a teacher goes day after day feeling incompetent—constantly struggling without any signs of improvement—they eventually start to believe that the problem is beyond their control. Once someone feels like they have no power or influence over the challenges in their life, they can begin to experience learned helplessness.

Learned helplessness isn’t just feeling stuck; it’s the belief that no matter what you do, nothing will change. And when people reach that point, motivation and engagement crumble, making it even harder to find solutions or move forward. This is why meeting these needs isn’t just helpful—it’s critical for maintaining mental health and motivation.

Learned helplessness happens when you feel like there’s no way to improve your situation, so you just cope with it and try to minimize the damage it causes.

It’s motivation’s worst enemy because it doesn’t just weaken motivation—it obliterates it. And once it takes hold, it’s incredibly hard to rebuild. Worse, learned helplessness doesn’t stay in one area of your life. It starts spilling over, influencing your motivation in other areas, your confidence, and even your belief that you can affect change in those areas.

This mindset is toxic. It corrodes your confidence, chips away at your mental well-being, and can even damage your relationships… yikes!

Learned helplessness is a monster of a problem, but the good news is it’s avoidable. By focusing on meeting the 5 needs, we can prevent it—or start to reverse it if it’s already taking root.

How can teachers use this understanding to reduce anxiety and stress for themselves and for students?

Teachers can use this understanding to recognize when these crucial needs aren’t being met—for themselves or their students. Once they’ve identified the issue, they can take that insight and create an action plan to address it. This proactive approach can either stop the problem in its tracks or prevent it from escalating further.

By focusing on meeting these needs, teachers can create an environment where both they and their students feel supported, motivated, and ready to thrive.

Teachers can also learn to spot when these needs are being compromised for their students and take action by putting strategies in place to meet those needs. This proactive approach can make all the difference in keeping students engaged and supported. We’ll dive deeper into this in our next blog post!

If you’re looking for the best strategies to meet these needs and improve both retention and engagement, The Neurodivergent Toolkit is the perfect place to start. It’s designed specifically for tackling these challenges and is packed with actionable tools and resources to help.

👉 Check out The Neurodivergent Toolkit HERE!

Stay tuned for our next blog, where we’ll dive into actionable ways to meet these needs—for both yourself and your students in the classroom. It’s all about creating a space where everyone can thrive.

And if you’re ready to take it a step further and build your calm when responding to negative behavior, check out our Workshop on Understanding Behavior to Reduce Our Stress Response in the Classroom HERE! It’s packed with strategies to help you navigate tough moments with confidence and clarity.