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It can't hurt to ask!

In many self-help books and books about entrepreneurship, asking for what you want seems to be a recurring theme. Asking for some quick help, asking for a raise or just straight-forward asking if someone wants to pay you for a service or a product.

Just ask! It sounds easier than it is for many of us.

Asking might feel risky to you

Asking for what you want is not something that we learn to do well. To the contrary, as children, we are taught that asking for what you want is rude, selfish and could make other people uncomfortable. In Dutch there is short saying (it rhymes): "kinderen die vragen, worden overgeslagen". "Children who ask, will be skipped", or in other words, people who ask will miss the boat and will be ignored or not liked.

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Isn't that the kind of message you would like to have as a child? Maybe you've learned to ask for what you want regardless of what you were told as a child or the culture you grew up in. But that is not everyone, including me a few years back.

Just shoot your shot

Not asking or feeling OK to ask other people for something, creates two problems.

The first one is that we tend not to know too well what we actually want. Having to formulate a request to someone forces us to actually think about what it is that we are asking, which gives clarity in itself.

People cannot read your mind

You have to help them help you

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The second problem of not asking others for something, is that we tend to start expecting other people to think on our behalf. Implicit expectations will start living their own life and before you know it you are in a "well, I thought that you thought that I thought" situation. This is frustrating and costs a lot of energy on both sides.
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So, therefore, asking for what you want and expressing your needs, isn't that bad at all.

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Ask away!

• Pick one area of your life
  • for example your job/work
• What is something that you would want for yourself in that are?
  • do a little less data analysis and a little more client contact
• Who should you ask for this?
  • you manager, your team?
• What would you want to say to them?
  • for example "I'd like to learn other skills as well, could I ... ?"
• When are you going to do it?
  • In the coming week, when is a good moment to ask them?