Beat The Fear of Asking For What You Want

If you have trouble getting yourself to ask for what you want, be assured, you are not alone. The problem is created by shyness and social anxiety. You hold back when it comes to asking for things you want. It could be something as simple as asking for directions, asking for someone to be quiet in the apartment next to you, asking for a refund at a store, or asking for someone to change a deadline on an assignment at work. Regardless of the situation, you find yourself hesitating to ask for what you want. What's the cause of this? For most people, the cause has to do with a combination of shy temperament and the belief system that suggests that other people would be annoyed or inconvenienced by your requests. In other words, you have an intense dislike for making yourself stand out, and you dislike situations that could bring any form of negative evaluation from others, even unspoken negative thoughts.

What's the solution? The best solution is to develop a thicker skin. I will tell you exactly how to do that, but first I need to mess with your mind for a minute so that you will actually accept the methods that I'm going to offer you. You see, most people who are reading this article are very unlikely to ever overcome this problem because of one specific reason. They simply choose to let the fear of pain dominate their thoughts instead of allowing their motivation and action to be driven by powerful positive anticipation of things that they do want.

Am I telling you that people are lazy and problems like this are simply all their fault? No! What I am saying is that there are very few people who have discovered that human motivation only works for us when we find ways to ignite our motivation in the pursuit of things we do want. If we do not purposefully engineer our thoughts around the things that we do want, the things that we don't want quickly take over because of natural instincts of our mind to focus on problems. When we focus on things we want, our goals become very powerful as they start a cycle of positive anticipation. When we focus on making changes in our life based on positive anticipation of things we really want, we ignite positive emotions and accompanying flow of Dopamine. Dopamine is a neurotransmitter in our brain that is active in the pleasure and reward centers. It gives us the feeling-good emotion that comes from everything from eating chocolate to getting a raise at work. Learn to master the reward centers in your brain, and you will have exceeded the vast majority of human beings in the degree of self-control you are capable of.

For the most part, we thrive when our motivation is based primarily on what we do want rather than on escaping from what we don't want. Unfortunately, most people are driven primarily by the drive to escape from what they don't want in life. This is what happens when you start each day without having planned specific goals and realistic dreams that you will actively pursue each day. Pursuing what you do want not only brings more of what you want in life, it also puts you in a positive emotional state because of the focus of your mind. You can do better than most people. Read on.

By now you may be wondering what these motivation techniques have to do with developing a thicker skin. Don't give up on me just yet, because I'm about to reveal to you this simple shift in your mindset that will bring about a tremendous jolt of positive well-being as you begin to apply changes to your life. (I just used the method that I was describing by offering a positive motivation for you to keep reading. Did you catch it?)

The best way to develop a thicker skin is to practice with asking for things. I want you to practice all day, every day, in as many situations as possible. Ask for directions even when you don't need them. Ask your partner for things that they are unlikely to grant you (warn them first that you will be asking for a lot of things and tell them it's perfectly fine to say no). Ask for an extra minute to think before you place your order at a drive-through. Ask your co-worker to do you a favor.

Are you wondering how you could possibly follow through on this when you struggle to ask for what you want? People can accomplish absolutely incredible feats when the motivation is strong enough. So I'm asking you to start with building powerful motivation. Think of it like a swim through a freezing-cold lake. The pain will be short-lived because you will rapidly become accustomed to asking for things when you do it all day, and the result will be a quickly-developing callous that protects you from the pangs of fear or guilt that currently hold you in bondage. So all you have to do is build a powerful positive expectation that is strong enough to make this short journey rewarding.

You may be wondering how you can follow through with this assignment when you have such a difficult time getting yourself to ask for what you want in the first place. If your motivation becomes strong enough, you'll find yourself doing incredible feats. So I'm asking you to begin the process of becoming less sensitive about asking for what you want by first building powerful motivation. You might think of the process like swimming across a small but very cold lake. When you first jump into the lake, you'll feel the pain of the cold biting at your skin. However, as you swim your body will heat up. By the time you reach the other shore you may not feel like the water is so cold.
To get yourself to dive into that freezing-cold lake, you need to develop a powerful expectation of something positive that is yet to come when you get to the other side of that lake. Start by using the power of your mind to see yourself in the future, having already accomplished your goal of becoming a more assertive person. Imagine what it will feel like when you can hold your head high and ask for what you want without flinching or feeling anxious afterwards. You need to become very certain of your vision for the future in order for your motivation to be strong. Instead of simply thinking, "what if I succeed?" think of your mental image as something that is a certain to come about, destined to come into fruition if you simply take the action of practicing asking questions each day. By tying this motivation to the actual active ingredient of change, you will find yourself able to begin practicing.

Here are a couple more tips before I send you on your way to get to work on this. Right before you ask for something you want, imagine the mindset of someone who is very assertive. Think about how they think of things in an entitled sort of way. Think about how those people would respond to someone who challenged them for asking for what they wanted. Think about how loud their voice would be. Think about how you still like them and you don't resent them for being assertive. Another tip is to think about times when someone has asked you for a favor, or directions, or something else. Did you hate their guts? No! Social Psychology research has found that we actually like others more after we grant them a favor. So take action on this information. Create a vision for how you want to feel and then keep a log so that you don't forget to work on it every day for at least twenty-one days. See yourself laughing with joy at your accomplishment at the end of the twenty-one days. Now go for it.

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Dr. Todd Snyder is a clinical psychologist who specializes in the treatment of Social Anxiety Disorder. He is the creator of the Social Anxiety Secrets System that provides a complete self-help and personal motivation system for overcoming symptoms of social anxiety. A free mini-course can be found at his website, www.socialanxietysecrets.com

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