Competence

Using your skills to master challenges, seeing yourself improving, and having control over your environment, rather than being incompetent or ineffective.

Competence is about feeling capable and effective in what you do. It's the satisfaction that comes from using your skills well, tackling challenges successfully, and seeing yourself improve over time.

This need appears when you finally master a difficult recipe after several attempts, solve a complex problem at work using your expertise, or successfully negotiate a better deal because you prepared thoroughly. It's about having the right tools and knowledge for the job, whether that's parallel parking in a tight spot, helping your child with homework, or confidently leading a meeting.

Competence isn't about being perfect or the best at everything. It's about feeling equipped to handle what life throws at you. A new parent feels competent when they learn to soothe their crying baby, just as a programmer feels competent when they debug a tricky piece of code.

When this need goes unmet, you might feel helpless, frustrated, or like you're constantly struggling without making progress. But when you experience competence regularly—through work achievements, personal projects, or everyday problem-solving—you develop confidence in your ability to learn, adapt, and handle whatever comes next.

Sub-needs

Using your skills to master challenges

Developing your skills and strengths

Having and acquiring knowledge and understanding

Having control over the state and events of your surroundings

Needs on a Desert Island

Imagine you're shipwrecked on a desert island with a group of survivors. You're responsible for fulfilling everyone's fundamental needs to create a thriving community.

Much labor is required to survive on a desert island, and because you want everyone to do their fair share, your islanders need to be put to work! But there is another reason to give every person something to do. In the Middle Ages, some European poets and painters portrayed a utopian land of plenty in which roasted partridges flew straight into people’s mouths, the skies rained fine wine, and no one ever had to work. To the toiling peasants at the time, this may indeed have sounded like a perfect world. However, as most people nowadays recognize, the pleasure of doing nothing will eventually run out at the end of a long, lazy holiday. People naturally want to test their skills, exercise their abilities, master challenges, and accomplish things.

Fundamental Needs in Overview

What does competence look like in the House of Needs? Click the image to find out!

Is it possible to design a chair that specifically fulfills the need for competence? Click the image to find out!