Episode 177: From Quiet to Confident: How to Ask for What You Want
It’s time to overcome your fear of rejection to discover the transformative power of making bold requests. In this episode, you’ll learn why self-advocacy is essential for personal and professional fulfillment and growth. Tune in for a dose of tough love that will empower you to stand up for yourself and drastically improve the quality of your life. Don't miss out on this life-changing episode!
Topics
The importance of asking for what you want
Challenges and assumptions about asking
Stories of clients who found success after challenging their assumptions
The need to advocate for oneself and increase self-worth
How to make powerful requests
Valuing effort and courage over the end result
Links
👉 Want to dig deeper into what you learned in the podcast? Go to selfgrowthnerds.com/school to work together! 👈
📙 Book mentioned in this episode:
Transcript
[AUTO-GENERATED]
Marie-Pier Tremblay [00:00:06]:
Welcome to the Self growth Nerds podcast. I'm your host Marie, a courage coach, creative soul and adventure seeker. Since thru hiking the Pacific Crest Trail in 2019, I'm on a mission to help you embrace your most confident self so you can achieve your dreams too. If you're eager for deep conversations, big questions and meaningful connections, join me on the quest to discovering how we can create a more magical and memorable life. Hello Nerds. How are you? I'm good. I had to force myself to stop reading my book in order to record this podcast. It's too good.
Marie-Pier Tremblay [00:00:48]:
It's called Part of Your World by Abby Jimenez. I just resisted buying it for a long time. I'd seen people online talking about it, but I just thought it looked cheesy. But man, it just drew me in so much, so much. It's the story of a fancy doctor who meets like a small town guy. That sounds kinda basic, right? Boring. But it's not, I swear. It's all about liberating yourself from the constraints of the culture you grew up in.
Marie-Pier Tremblay [00:01:26]:
So you can finally do what you really want instead of folding yourself up like a pretzel trying to please everyone making yourself miserable. Here's my advice if you want more work life balance, go get a book that's really really good, like a massive page turner. And then you're going to be very happy to take proper lunch breaks, and to to get your work done with less perfectionism so that you can get back to reading. Okay. Let's get into today's episode. Last week was a very long 1. 1 hour episode about manifestation. If you haven't listened, go and listen.
Marie-Pier Tremblay [00:02:07]:
It was 1 of my favorites I've recorded in a long time. Today is gonna be a shorter 1. And more of like a passionate rant. We're gonna talk about 1 of the most important reasons why you might not have what you want right now. A reason that you have control over and it's that you don't ask for what you want, okay? We're gonna talk about the power of requests. Before we get started though I want to remind you that there is a contest going on right now. If you give this podcast a review then you get the chance to have a free coaching call with me. So how this works you go to Apple Podcast or the Spotify app.
Marie-Pier Tremblay [00:02:54]:
If you go to Apple Podcasts, you're gonna go to the Self growth nerds page, scroll down to the bottom, and there's gonna be a button, write a review. You write a review there. If you don't have the Apple Podcasts app, you go into the Spotify app, and then you pick any episode, you scroll to the bottom of the episode, and it's gonna there's a question there that says, what did you think about this episode? You you write your thoughts there. K. I'm gonna put all of the names in a bowl and I'm gonna pick a name and on July 8th, I'm gonna announce the winner Who's going to have a 1 hour coaching session with me for free. So go do that now before the episode properly starts. I will wait. This is super important especially if you enjoy the Podcast, if the podcast has helped you.
Marie-Pier Tremblay [00:03:48]:
Because getting more reviews is going to put the podcast in front of more eyes and be able to help more people. So please take a moment if this podcast has had an impact in your life in the last 3 and a half years. Okay. Too often, we don't have what we want in life because we are simply not willing to ask. The reason we're not willing to ask is we make assumptions about what people will think and how they will respond. And if we're not a 100% sure we will get a yes, we don't take the risk of getting rejected. Discomfort that comes with rejection. I'll give you an example.
Marie-Pier Tremblay [00:04:42]:
I had a client who said to me she wanted to find a different job because she was not heed what her work was worth where she was working currently. So I asked her, why don't you ask for a raise? And at first, she was very resistant. She had been working there for over a decade. She'd been very quiet, didn't ask for much, and she just, assumed that her bosses would think her request was way too bold. She was asking for a raise of a little over $30, 000. She had her reasons, she had done her research, she knew how much people that did her job were paid in other similar companies. But she said things like, well I can't do this, they're gonna think I'm greedy, they're going to fire me, I'm gonna lose my job and I can't afford to do that. These were all the assumptions she was making.
Marie-Pier Tremblay [00:05:44]:
The stories she was telling herself about why she could not ask for what she wanted. We spent a whole session together deconstructing each of those stories. And in the end she decided you know what, I'm gonna take a chance. I'm gonna take a chance and we'll see. And guess what? They ended up saying yes. I'm not going to share all the details. But they gave her what she asked for. And when she got the news, she came back to me and she said without our conversation, without your coaching, I would never have dared ask for this.
Marie-Pier Tremblay [00:06:24]:
And now you have no idea what's going to become possible with this amount of money extra every year. And this was possible because we challenged her assumptions. This is not the first time something like this happens with 1 of my clients. I've had many other clients get raises and ask for, multiple months off for a special project that they had like a through hike for example or 4 day work weeks so that they would have more time for themselves. And it always started with them telling me this is what I want, but here's all the reasons why I can't ask for what I want. Here's all the stories that I tell myself that make it impossible for me to even ask. And every time, we've got to challenge those assumptions, then they go asked, and very often, they are surprised with the answer. Not always, but very often.
Marie-Pier Tremblay [00:07:25]:
Too many people would rather lose a metaphorical $30, 000 which to me represents freedom, than feel uncomfortable for a short period of time. We don't open ourselves up to a yes because we are scared of getting a no. We're scared of being rejected. But even before considering the answer, we're also scared just of asking. Because asking is associated with being difficult. And we don't wanna seem difficult. We don't want to be quote unquote too much through just daring to ask. And that is not our fault.
Marie-Pier Tremblay [00:08:04]:
That's how we've been socialized. Especially if you've been socialized as a woman and especially if you've grown up religious. 1 of my clients was telling me about something she experienced at a religious summer camp. And it's funny because I experienced exactly the same thing when I was with scouts. And scouts are religious as well. Christian, I believe. It's kind of like a game where at mealtime you're not allowed to go grab the food that you want. You have to wait for others to ask you, would you like some food, and then they're going to serve you the food.
Marie-Pier Tremblay [00:08:45]:
This is well meaning that the point, if I understand correctly, is for you to be more aware of your surroundings, of what people need around you, and to be generous, and to think about others before you think about yourself. There's so much good in that right, it strengthens communities if we're able to rely on each other. But we have to be careful, this has to be nuanced because it can also lead to self abandonment. You can't always wait for people to guess what you need. And if asking for what you need is seen in a negative light, then you will remain quiet and your needs will remain unfulfilled. In so many cultures, asking for what you want in a calm, clear, direct way is seen as impolite and selfish. That is ingrained in so many of us. I should be low maintenance.
Marie-Pier Tremblay [00:09:39]:
I shouldn't need much. But the result of that is so much resentment and dissatisfaction, and unhappiness, really. I used to take pride in being low maintenance, and that made me feel miserable. So if you recognize yourself here, I believe this needs to change if you want to create a fulfilling life. You need to start becoming more high maintenance. You need to start being able to say, here are my Nerds. I have needs. They're legitimate.
Marie-Pier Tremblay [00:10:14]:
And they deserve to be fulfilled. Otherwise, people will think you're nice, for sure, but you'll be forever frustrated waiting for others to read your mind. I remember that that client of mine I mentioned earlier who got the the 5 figure raise, she said she said something like, oh, my bosses should just know the value of my work and they should give me that raise. Right. I agree they probably should, but that's not how the world works, right? So you've got to be able to advocate for yourself instead of blaming other people for not giving you what you want. You've got to actually stand up and say here's what I want, here's why I think I deserve it. You're basically going back in time and advocating for a younger version of you that didn't get their needs met. When you were a kid, for some reason, your parents were busy, your parents didn't have They were ill equipped to take care of you properly.
Marie-Pier Tremblay [00:11:18]:
And so you had to learn to be low maintenance in order to survive. You had to. But now you're you're you're changing the story. You're rewriting the story and you're re parenting yourself. Giving yourself what you always needed but learned to survive without. I hear too many people minimizing their Nerds, saying like oh you know, I could do with a little extra but I'll I'll be fine without it. I'll manage. Yes.
Marie-Pier Tremblay [00:11:47]:
Sure. You will manage because that's what you've done your whole life, but you don't have to. Let's say you're about to leave work for the evening and your boss asks you to stay longer. Deep down, you know you need time off. You need to go home and you need to relax. But you tell yourself, well, I guess I don't have to. I I mean, I could work an extra 3 hours. I'll be fine.
Marie-Pier Tremblay [00:12:13]:
That is minimizing your need. Yes, you would be fine, but it's not because you can do something that you have to do it. I want to give you another example. The other day, I was sitting on the sofa with my partner and his sister called. She has 2 kids. She said, okay, my partner and I need a break. When are you free to babysit? So he gave her a date and a time. And that was it.
Marie-Pier Tremblay [00:12:39]:
Simple. There are a lot of parents in my surroundings. And what I notice is some of them will ask for what they Nerds, like this, in a clear direct way, and they're much more likely to get their needs met versus others will just wait to be offered because they don't wanna be annoying. But you have a lot less control if you think this way. I see this with a lot of people pleasers. They don't want to ask because they assume the other person is not gonna wanna do it and they don't want to put them in a position where they would have to say no. But why not? So what if the other person has to figure out a way to say no? Maybe they need to learn to advocate for themselves. If you don't dare advocating for yourself and asking for what you want, you rob other people from the opportunity to advocate for themselves as well.
Marie-Pier Tremblay [00:13:42]:
If someone asks me to babysit and that's not possible for me, I will say I'm sorry, that's not possible for me. Maybe next week, maybe the week after. I've advocated for myself and we together are creating an environment where we both can be honest about what we need, what's possible and what's not. But someone has to go first. There's this expression, it's the squeaky wheel that gets the Growth. And it's true, there are statistics that say that men are more likely to get raises, simply because they are more comfortable asking for them. In a negotiation most often than not it's the person that's most comfortable with money that's going to win. And this is true in all aspects of life.
Marie-Pier Tremblay [00:14:32]:
The person that's most likely to get what they want is the 1 who believes they're worthy of it so they're gonna ask for it. And that's what's most important here. Worthiness. If you were socialized to be low maintenance like we talked about earlier, your automatic programming is that it's better for you. You are better as a human being if you need as little as possible. And now that is something we all need to unlearn. So repeat after me. I am worthy of getting my needs met.
Marie-Pier Tremblay [00:15:13]:
You are worthy of getting your needs met. And that doesn't necessarily mean others are going to meet them all the time, but sometimes we don't even meet our own needs ourselves because we unconsciously believe we shouldn't have to. We unconsciously believe we're not worthy of them and we should be okay without putting a sweater on, that we should be okay without taking time off, that we should be okay without time in nature. We're trying to be tough, And some people might call this resilience, but it's self neglect. Now is the time to learn to stand up for yourself. And 1 way to do it is with requests. 1 small request at a time. You will see that when you dare to ask, crazy things happen.
Marie-Pier Tremblay [00:16:08]:
I'll give you examples. I reached out to 3 of my heroes for them to be guests on the podcast last year. Leonie Dawson, Andy J Pizza, and Meg Lewis. These names might not ring a bell for you, but for me they are people that I look up to. People that have audiences so much bigger than mine. And all 3 said yes. Sure, there are requests that I made that went unnoticed. That's okay.
Marie-Pier Tremblay [00:16:38]:
These people said yes and I would never have dared ask them to come on the podcast if I had not challenged my initial assumptions. My initial assumptions were like Self they're gonna think I'm a nobody. They're not gonna wanna waste time doing this. They're not gonna get anything out of it. But I was wrong. My sister, she applied for a master's in Copenhagen, and she just thought, you know, we'll see we'll see what happens. She got accepted with a full scholarship. I applied to go to the Du lectures in Wales.
Marie-Pier Tremblay [00:17:14]:
It's a a 4 day event, like a magical event of talks and workshops on a farm in Cardigan. And they only accept a 100 people every year and I got in. At first, I was like, okay, this is a dream of mine. I'm just going to apply every year until it works. And who would have thought that the first time I applied, it actually worked? 1 last example. After I left my 7 year relationship last year, after I I grieved, and when I was ready to get back into dating, there was a bunch of wild things I wanted to try like, like having a threesome. And more specifically I wanted a couple to take charge because I'd always wanted to experiment with another woman but I was too shy to do it alone with 1 other person. And I felt that this scenario would make it easier for me and I was right.
Marie-Pier Tremblay [00:18:21]:
By the way, the reason why I'm sharing these personal stories is because I want to contribute in normalizing queerness and cake. The point here though is that when I had this idea pop into my mind, I was like okay, well how do I even get started? The first thing I did was downloading an app called Field, on which you can meet all kinds of people who want all kinds of things. And then I started having conversations with people and asking them for exactly what I wanted. Like exactly. I was very specific, I figured worst thing that's gonna happen is they say no, so what? They're strangers. I can just move on. But so many people said yes, yes, I'm actually I'm actually interested. And after doing my due diligence and making sure I was safe, I was able to organize the experiences that I wanted to have.
Marie-Pier Tremblay [00:19:24]:
But that is not something that I would have done before. Before, I was more of the mindset like I'm just gonna take what comes my way. But now I am working on being so much more active. Like being an active participant in all aspects of my life. And that's what I work on with my clients as well. I recorded an episode about this. Passive versus active. In which I talk about how most of my clients when they get started with me, they are unhappy because they've been passive for too long.
Marie-Pier Tremblay [00:20:01]:
So I ask them, what do you want? And how do we go after it? Just the act of asking is going to make you feel alive. So what if people say no? You're stepping outside of a passive role and taking active control of your life. That is what's going to make you feel better. Not necessarily getting a yes, not necessarily being successful, but being in meaningful action. Making moves that tell your psyche, I think we're worth it. Let's give this a try, because I think we might actually be worth it. So now I want you to think about the requests you could make. I actually make a list of the people you could reach out to and what you could ask from them.
Marie-Pier Tremblay [00:20:56]:
If you had like 5 seconds of insane courage, what kind of requests would you make? Now, there's 3 things you need to make powerful requests. Number 1, you need to have your own back. You need to promise not to judge yourself. To tell yourself, no matter what they say, that you were courageous for giving it a try. That that is what matters, which brings me to number 2. Number 2 is you need to value the right thing. Too many people value the result. If they get a no, they said well you're so stupid, you should've known that was not gonna work.
Marie-Pier Tremblay [00:21:42]:
Instead of valuing how you showed up, the courage that you showed up with, the effort that you made. And lastly, you need openness to discomfort. The worst case scenario is someone says no and you feel rejected. But that's a feeling and every feeling passes. Unless you make it mean all these horrible things about you. There's clean pain and there's dirty pain. Clean pain here is the pain that comes from caring about something, asking for it, and the other person saying no. Then you feel rejection.
Marie-Pier Tremblay [00:22:26]:
That's clean pain. Dirty pain is all the stories you tell yourself that make you feel awful. Like I'm so stupid, I should've known, they don't like me, I'm selfish, I'm incompetent, whatever it is that your inner critic, your inner asshole is going to say, that's what's going to lead to 30 pain. 30 pain is optional. It's optional if you promise to have your own back. It's all a circle. You've gotta promise to have your own back. You have to to value effort rather than the end result and you have to be open to the discomfort, to the clean pain that comes with the potential no.
Marie-Pier Tremblay [00:23:14]:
Okay? Then when you're ready to make a request, keep in mind to be respectful of the person's time with clear, direct communication. No 1 enjoys having to read between the lines and try to guess what you're asking for. Then speak from your heart. Don't pretend to be someone that you're not. Tell tell the truth. Talk about what you need, what you desire, and how they could help you. And lastly, approach them without an agenda. If you give yourself the permission to ask, you have to give them the permission to say yes or to say no.
Marie-Pier Tremblay [00:23:57]:
And not have your whole emotional well-being attached to their answer. Then based on what they tell you, you can decide what comes next. Let's say you decide to ask for a raise because you have done the research and you believe that your work is worth more. And they say no, they have the right to do so and you have the right to decide to leave. But at least now you have all the information. You haven't made a decision based on your assumption. You were brave enough to ask, you have your answer and then you can decide what's next. Now before we leave I'm gonna give you journaling prompts to reflect on this topic.
Marie-Pier Tremblay [00:24:41]:
The first 1 is to make that list of what you wanna ask for. The author Kasia Urbaniak that I'm always going on and on about, She says, if you weren't scared to be seen as a quote unquote bad girl, what would you ask for? Make a list. And then I also want you to take notice of the assumptions that you make. The reasons why you think it's not worth asking. K? Make a list of all those stories that you tell yourself. And then finally, ask yourself, in what ways might I be wrong about this? What else might be true here? And if you feel stuck, because this can be really hard to do on your own because you don't see your blind spots, it's helpful to have someone that's outside of your conditioning, that's outside of your belief system to bring you different perspectives, to help you see your situation differently. If that's the case for you, then book a call with me. You have 2 options.
Marie-Pier Tremblay [00:25:48]:
You can either book a 90 minute clarity boost, which is a 1 off intensive session with me. It's a $190 We're gonna focus on 1 aspect of your life and do a deep dive for an hour and a half. Or you can book a free assessment call. These ones are shorter. We're gonna have a a more general look at your life, where you're getting stuck, where you want to be and then I'm gonna tell you about how working with me for a longer period of time could help you. And then you get to the side. You can find these 2 options at Self com slash work with me. Okay that is it for this week.
Marie-Pier Tremblay [00:26:32]:
Don't forget to review the podcast if you use the Apple Podcast app or tell me what you think about this episode on the Spotify Podcast app for a chance to win a free coaching session with me. I cannot wait to meet the winner, that will be announced on July 8th. I wish you a beautiful week. I hope you make courageous requests. And you'll see when you open yourself up to being surprised, there are more chances that you will be. I'm sending you lots and lots of love, I'm going to go back to my book and, I will talk to you next week. Bye. Hey.
Marie-Pier Tremblay [00:27:19]:
If you love what you're hearing on the Self growth Nerds podcast and you want individual help finding a new direction for your life and developing the courage to make your dreams a reality, you have to check out how we can work together on selfgrowthnerds.com Nerds message me on Instagram at self Growth nerds. My clients say they would have needed that support years ago. So if you're tired of feeling like you're wasting your life, don't wait. Get in touch now, and I cannot wait to meet you.