Ask and You Shall Receive
Our minds often want to make goal setting and goal attainment complex, intimidating operations. We have to spend a weekend in a sweat lodge spirit trekking to find our true selves. From there, we have to develop a thirty-seven point process for reaching the goals we discovered. Each day we need to write a page in our journal detailing the steps we took today toward accomplishing our goals. We have to engage mentors, join support groups and take classes all in the service of reaching our goals. Sometimes it seems that the process ofattainment is so overwhelming that we give up before we even get started.
A recent article in the Washington Post points out that sometimes reaching a goal can be as simple as asking for what we want. This article examines differences in income and opportunity between men and women in a graduate TA program, and in the workplace at large. Yes, this kind of study has been done to death. The dead horse has been flogged more than enough, thank you. But the study cited in the article went beyond stating the obvious, and looked at the why. The conclusion was very surprising to me.
Their final conclusion was that men received more money and opportunity because they asked for it. Yep - that is all there was to it - they just asked. No magic, no plan, no life transforming secret.
How much are we missing out on in life because we are afraid to do something so simple as ask. If you are a fan of the Law of Attraction (LOA), sometimes you just need to ask the universe. You need to ask your boss for a raise. You need to ask the cute man/woman our for a drink. When you are at the store buying the expensive new appliance, you need to ask for a discount on installation services. No matter where you are, or what you are doing, you will be amazed at how much more you will get from life if you just ask for what you want or need. What is the worst that will happen? The person you are asking will smile and politely say no.
Make a point of collecting more No’s in your life. Keep track of how many negative responses you have to get past before you get a positive. Then you will know that say, for each 10 No’s, you will get 1 Yes. Once you know your batting average, you know exactly what to expect. Nothing scary there. And once you begin asking, you will get better at knowing when, where, how and what to ask for in any situation. You will improve your average as you practice.
[…] for what you want. I am amazed at how often we all fail to ask for what we want or need. I used to be terrified of hearing the word “No”. We started teaching our children at […]