Episode 12: Asking for What You Want
Hello my friends, Welcome to Episode 12! Thanks for taking the time to listen to my ideas and ramblings. I hope that you are finding the ideas useful!
Today I wanted to talk a little bit about asking for what you want and voicing your expectations.
So often I find that I just stay silent and I am going to guess that some of you stay silent too about the things that I want or the expectations that I have of other people and interestingly enough that leads to two different results.
I don’t get the things that I want
People never live up to these expectations.
Sounds disappointing doesn’t it!
Now the reason that we all stay silent I think is pretty straight forward. It’s the good old struggle of vulnerability. It is very hard to ask for what you want. It is very hard to express what we expect of other people.
But there are big consequences for not taking the leap into the space of vulnerability and I think there are a lot of reasons we don’t do it.
One of them is that we don’t know what we want. This one is tough because a lot of us have a vague idea of what we want but we don’t exactly know what that looks like. It's like what one of my friends said to me when we were out skiing the other weekend – we are kind of like half way but not really…. I think this is how we are with our wants. We kind of know what we want but not really and interestingly enough I think we are more interested in how we think having the thing will make us feel and we are actually having the thing.
For example, a herd of 50 cows. We think that will make us feel successful. So, we say that is what we want. But when we have 50 cows, do we actually feel successful -I am guessing if it is calving season and you just headed into the brush to dig out a cow and calf, success isn’t exactly the emotion you would be using to describe your experience.
Take the time to get clear on what you want.
I love to just ask the question: what do I want?
And then follow it up with what do I secretly want?
Now the answer to that question is magic.
When we really get into what we want. Some of those things are emotions and that means we can have them now and they will actually help us create the physical thing that we want. So pay attention to how you think the things you want will make you feel. It is an important connection that will help you with this next part.
Then we move on to actually expressing what we want and if those wants are expectations that we have for someone else then giving voice to those expectations or standards.
I don’t think it is always very fair that we just expect others to see the world in the same way we do or that we expect them to just do things the way we want them.
It is a skill to learn how to calmly ask for the things you want. And have the self confidence to be specific in certain situations about what that want is.
Silence followed by anger/resentment doesn’t help us get the things we want or need nor does it help us build relationships.
It is a very vulnerable place to put yourself to ask for the things you want. We run the risk of others saying yes and then just not doing it, or saying no. and those are the two options that our brains tell us will happen. But our dear brains forgot two other options – and that was the option where they said yes and they delivered or they say no and we find another way to get what we want.
For us to be able to ask for the things we want we have to overcome inner critic tell us that we shouldn’t be asking or that what we want just doesn’t matter.
Watch for that inner critic voice putting you down and take the time to investigate what you are asking for and why you want it.
Investigating our wants and expectations of others can be very revealing.
It shows us what things we think are important.
It can show us where we are, maybe being a bit unreasonable.
It can show us where we are not allowing ourselves to dream and to grow.
I think wanting things is a good thing. I also think being able to articulate that is essential.
One of the reasons that voicing our wants and expectations is so important is because when we don’t ask for things the answer is automatically no.
We so often think that there is a high probability that the answer is no so we decide that it actually is no. We make the answer no by not even asking for the thing that we want.
In coaching we call this a no ahead of time.
Now I am not suggesting that you make a request and then place all of your happiness on the other person saying yes and delivering the requested want.
What I am saying is have the confidence in yourself and do the work on yourself to know what you want. Know why you want it and then make the requests to other people to help you get the things that you want.
When we don’t ask then we definitely will not get it.
And so often we take no as the answer before the other person was given a chance to actually say no.
We say no to ourselves just to prevent us from getting a No from someone else.
This is often where we get angry at the other person, we get resentment for them because they always have to have their way.
But we never asked for what we wanted.
We never gave them the opportunity to understand why we wanted something – what we wanted or why we wanted what we did.
We have to open ourselves up and that piece of vulnerability looks like being willing to ask for what we want. And being able to manage ourselves and manage our own disappointment. The only reason we are feeling disappointed is because we think they should have said yes.
And so we need to take the time to put the request out into the world. If you never put the request in, the answer is automatically no.
Understanding why the thing was important to us and if the person was not willing to do it are we willing to find another way to get it done.
Put that real trust in ourselves to get the things that we need.
What do you want?
What do you need to ask for?
It will be fun.
Have a wonderful week.