Ask for What You Want
I want lots of things in my life. Some of them are not in my control, such as growing 6 inches taller. Sigh.
But, many of them are in my control. I can get them just by asking for them.
I can ask for help, as I’ve suggested several times. Asking for help is a gift to the other person, not a sign of weakness.
I ask for what I want, which is the topic of this post. I know, asking for what you want is a funny-strange question of the week. You have to determine the shape of the question.
Today, when I went to the gym, it was icy near the door. I asked the person behind the desk if they would sprinkle more salt so I had a shot of walking back to my car after my workout (and not falling over). She said, “Sure.”
Unless you ask for what you want, you can’t possibly know.
That’s why you need to ask for what you want. When you ask for what you want, you open the door possibilities. You create the growth mindset in yourself and start it in the other person, just by asking a question. Remember, other people are not mind readers. If you start by asking for what you want, you might be more than halfway to what you want. If you don’t ask, you won’t know.
You might not get what you want. But, you never get what you want if you don’t ask.
Yes, I got the salt in the parking lot. I was happy about that.
What do you think? Have you tried asking for what you want? What happened?
7 thoughts on “Ask for What You Want”
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I love this! I recently discovered the power of asking questions and it transformed my life, and wrote about it too. Thanks for sharing, Johanna!
Hala, please, add the link here. I’d love to see it.
Thanks Johanna! It was a post inspired by me having to answer some questions for an interview, and reminded me of the value of asking questions at work, at home, and in life. Here it is, thanks for asking: http://bit.ly/1jqAVJW
Excellent, thanks Hala!
Great advice, although I struggle to know what I want–I feel like the ideas come to me too late.
Allison, I’m not sure there is a “too late” in the grand scheme of things. There might be a “too late for right now.”
Maybe what you want is: “I’d like some time to think about my options. I’ll get back to you in (a few minutes, a couple of hours, a day) depending on the circumstances.” Then you timebox your problem solving, your option generation, whatever the thing is that you need to generate ideas for.
I hope this makes sense.
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