Clarity Is Contagious! – Ask for Specifics When Asking for What You Want…

by Reid on March 11, 2016

young multiethnic couple lying in tent with feet crossed. Exercising Your Clarity Muscles In 3 Easy Steps To Get MORE Of What You Want In Life and In Bed…

If you know me, you know I’m a big fan of exercises I can do myself that give me clarity.

Why?

Because when I’ve taken steps towards becoming clear, others often react to me in more postive ways.

It doesn’t mean I always get what I want, but in this world filled with people being “fuzzy” and vague, folks see me as someone who “knows themselves,” and that seems to make people feel safer around me, which sometimes has them say yes to things I request (even when I’m the “scary sex guy.” LOL).

I find myself more inclinde to consider a request when I feel safe/safer around someone. Is that the same for you?

Feel free to have a different take on this approach, but, for me personally, it’s also more difficult and less enjoyable for me when I’m “bumbling around” trying to ask for something vague. Also, as I hope you’ll see below, when I’m not clear, I don’t often get what I really want, which means an increase in dissatisfaction and eventually a kind of “starvation loop” for getting my needs met.

Consider the impact of being vauge as it adds up over months, years, decades…

Getting clarity can be challenging, but once you realize that 1) the fear of asking for what you really want is how you know you’re moving in the right direction, and 2) the difficulty is probably coming from not having exercised your Clarity Muscles enough… Then you realize: Clarity is growthful and empowering! And you’ll just keep getting better and better at it with practice!

The Bonus Benefit: When you have clarity + people respond positively to clarity + a little bit of practice = you increase your odds of getting more of what you want in life.

Here’s the your exercise towards being even more awesome…

3 Steps Towards Getting More of What You Want

I’ve broken it down into 3 Steps… Feel free to start with something small, but make sure it’s something you’d really like to do with someone.

Step A: The first step is to get the things you would like to ask for out of your head and down on paper or a computer screen.

Ask yourself two questions (and I recommend writing the answers down):

1. What’s one thing, that, if it were a yes for both (or all) of us, would make the rest of the week feel amazing and delightful?
____________________________________________

____________________________________________

2. Who do you want to do that with?
____________________________________________

____________________________________________

Step B:  Identify the “Asking for what you think others want” trap…

Go back and look at your first answer. Did you ask for what you really want, or did you offer to do what you think the other person would be a yes to? This is a common mistake so many of people make. To increase their odds of getting a yes, we ask for what we think the other person would already be a yes to (never asking for what we really want). I did this for decades, so don’t beat yourself up. So many of us do this unconsciously, and you are becoming aware of it now (which means you rock! And means you can shift it!).

I encourage you to reword your answer to be what you really want. Again, write these answers down so you can get them out of your head. (It’s when they’re left rattling around in your brain, unchecked, that things usually end up getting worse. Am I right?!)

Step C: Get Specific

Now, here’s the trick that most people get wrong. I want you to be REALLY specific about what you want to do. A lot of the time we generalize or pull back from the details, hoping that it will give the other person/people more room to say yes.

In trying to “sweeten the pot,” we leave things more vague (because we don’t want to create pressure, right?)… But the truth is: Vagueness creates more pressure and weirdness than specifics.

Clarity is contagious.

Giving people specifics can often help give THEM clarity and help them identify what they want. Think about it: Is it easier to say yes to things when you know the details, right? Which situations tend to leave you with better overall experiences and feelings, the ones where you knew what you were saying yes to, or the ones where you said yes blindly?

So, look at your answers above and think about details. It could be the location, the time, the people involved, what they’re wearing, the flavor of ice cream you want to eat off their… ahem… What ever you can think of that would help make your vision clear to the people you’re going to share it with. You can make it clear that you’re open to negotiation, but starting with details gives people something to work with.

Let me give you an example…

Ambiguous: Asking person A, “What about a massage?”

Clear: Saying to person A, “I’m practicing asking for what I want, are you open to hearing my request?” Provided they are open to hearing your request, “I’d love to lay on a blanket in front of the fire and have you rub coconut oil on my back and give me a long gentle massage.”

What are 3 specific details from your request above that you can share about what you want?
1) _______________________________
2) _______________________________
3) _______________________________

Rewrite your request including the details…

______________________________________________

______________________________________________

______________________________________________

How was that for you?

Now that you have your request and it’s clear, Bonus Points if you ask the person!

I love doing exercises like this because it’s easier for me to summon up the courage to make requests when I’ve got them written down and clear rather than rattling around amorphously in my skull where they get all wonky.

Today, I encourage you to practice the exercise above, then… Get out there and ASK someone. Using your details. If they say no, thank them for taking care of themselves and congratulate yourself on being self-expressed. You exercised your clarity muscles. Way to go!

If they’re not a no, and want to negotiate, celebrate that you get to find a yes-yes for all involved!

And, if they say yes, pleeeeeeease Allow Yourself To Enjoy!

You could even send them this email and ask them if they’d like to do this exercise together… Hint, hint. 😉

If you want to share your adventure, leave a comment below and let me know how it went! Did you get what you wanted? How did it feel to ask for what you really were wanting to experience? (I can’t reply to everyone, but I do read each email).

xxREiD

Ps. A Secret Tip of Mine… When gaining clarity on requests, see if you can’t brainstorm more than one person that you could make the request of… Sometimes there’s really only 1 person for “the job,” but I’ve found that many of my requests aren’t actually person specific, I just think they are. If you’re like me, you might discover that some things you want can be fulfilled by several people, which means you just increased your “request pool,” which means you *could* ask multiples folks, which also means that you might end up getting multiples of what you want… And I think YOU deserve to get more of what you ask for, Sex Geek. Just sayin’.

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