Welcome to the Bloom Your Mind podcast, where we take all of your ideas for what you want, and we turn them into real things. I'm your host, certified coach Marie McDonald. Let's get into it.
Hello everybody, and welcome to episode number 70 of the Bloom Your Mind podcast. So pumped to be here with you today have a little bit of a cold, so if I sound a little throaty, that's why, hang with me. I'll keep it short and sweet.
Today is an episode about requests. This has been on my podcast episode bucket list for over a year, since I started Bloom Your Mind. It's a companion episode to Boundaries Baby, which is another episode that you can find in the archives there.
The reason I'm making this now is both because, as I said, it is one that I've always planned to make and that is relevant to any kind of idea that you're turning into a real thing, whether that's something in your personal life or a project that you're working on, whether it is a habit that you're changing, an improvement you're making to a relationship, a company or a community event that you're changing, an improvement you're making to a relationship, a company or a community event that you're starting.
All of these things will require you to make requests, and when we make requests, we tend to do a couple things that make life a little bit harder for us. So today I'm going to give you a new process, a new way of thinking about making requests to make life a little bit easier for you. So, requests are related to anything that we're doing.
They come up every day in our everyday life and definitely in relation to any big project that we're doing or idea that we're making real, and they only work when we are also putting into place boundaries. So today I'm going to talk a little bit about what we tend to do with requests, what I recommend we do with requests, and how we think about them, and how to also have boundaries as a companion to your requests.
All right, so, first of all, why? Why do we need to make requests? Well, as I've said before, we cannot control the people around us, and when we're making an idea real, it would be really nice if we could do that, if we could just have everybody act in a way that is so conducive to the vision that we have for the change we want to make come into life.
But I tell y'all, I've tried it. I've tried controlling people and it doesn't work, even though sometimes I really wish I could. I mean, let's be honest, we all do right. We wish the person would drive that's next to us on the freeway would drive in a different way. We wish someone that we live with would do something in the kitchen in a different way.
We wish someone that we love would communicate with us in a way that feels a little bit better. We wish they would show up on time. We wish they would give us a gift for our birthday. Whatever it is that you wish you could do with the people around you. We know that we can't control, ultimately, how they act, and to try makes us crazy.
We can make powerful requests, and, in my opinion, we don't actually do this often enough, for two reasons. Our nature is to treat requests in two ways. The first way is that we make requests of other people and then, depending on what they say, we have an emotional reaction.
So, if we ask them to be a part of something, we make a request and invite someone to come to something and they say, no, I don't really want to, we sometimes make it mean something about ourselves that we're not desirable, that they don't love us, that they don't care about us.
Let's say, we request that someone participates in our project, and they say no, we make it mean that the project is terrible and not worthwhile. Maybe we quit. We sometimes make requests of people and then, if they say no or they don't follow through on a yes, we allow it to destroy us emotionally or at least cause us a lot of emotional pain.
That's not the best move, and so I'm going to talk about a different way that we can make requests. But the second thing we often do with requests is we don't make them because we're afraid of getting turned down.
That's also not what I recommend, because I want us to be out there making a request to move our ideas forward, because ultimately, that will make the world a better place, make our lives more fulfilling, and we'll be able to turn ideas into real things that enrich the world.
So, let's get good at making requests, shall we? First of all, I want to say I've worked on this for a long time. It's not easy, but it really works as you get better and better at it. So let me just acknowledge that this takes some work, or it can anyways. So, there are two important things to know about requests. The first is that we make a request that's clear and direct and we take responsibility for our own emotional reaction.
So, we make a request and even if the person says no or says yes and does not follow through, we know we're going to be okay.
The way that we know we're going to be okay is the second part that's important about requests we set a boundary to go with the request. Boundaries allow us to understand where we end, and the other person begins what we're in control of and what we're not in control of. A boundary is always focused on our own space, what we will do, and not a threat, and not about controlling the other person.
So, making requests, paired with setting boundaries, gives us really clear and clean space between ourselves and the people that we're in relationships with. So, the three steps to making a request are to make a clear, clean, direct request, set a boundary Most boundaries will probably just be set in your own mind, not set out loud, unless it becomes a problem and three allow your own discomfort.
So, if the person doesn't follow through, if you don't like what they say, or do you allow your own frustration or discomfort and then take responsibility for getting yourself into an emotional space that feels good for you and communicating from there.
So, let's take some examples. First of all, you might make a request to someone hey, do you want to hang out with me? If they say, no, they don't, then it's just a matter of allowing that feeling whatever that is, frustration or disappointment. And then, moving on, if they do say that they want to hang out and you set a date beautiful.
Now let's say you get to that date and you're hanging out with a person and they don't show up, the first thing I recommend I always have a backup plan when I'm going to hang out with someone in case they don't show up, in case they hit traffic, in case they forget, so that I always know that I will have something planned that I can do with my time that I'm as excited about as hanging out with a person.
And secondly, if a person doesn't show up the first time, you can set a boundary. Hey, if this happens again, I'm going to only want to plan hangs that are at my house so I can kind of do other things if they fall through. Maybe that's an example of a boundary, maybe it's something else. Maybe you say I'm actually not willing to make dates any longer because you haven't followed through on the last two.
Let's say you make a request for someone to be a part of an event. Okay, again, maybe you're asking them to be a speaker at an event or collaborate on an event with you, be a partner. You've put that request out there and you need to be prepared for yes or no and to process any feeling of disappointment that might come up and reset our mindset to get back into a place of resilience and determination.
Let's say they say no, who's our backup plan? Who are we going to ask? Next, let's take an example for people that you live with. I talk to a lot of people that talk about this one.
Let's say you ask people that you live with to not leave their laundry around the house, and they keep doing it. Process that frustration and then you can set a boundary. For instance, I won't be doing more laundry until you've picked up the laundry that's on the floor. When your laundry's all over the house, I'll take it and put it in a pile right inside your door so that the space can be open and usable for everybody else that's in it.
If you don't pick up your clothing and treat it by putting it in the laundry or hanging it up. I won't be buying more clothes until I can see that you're going to be respectful of the clothes that you have. These are all boundaries.
They're not threats, but they're letting the other person know. Listen, I'm not going to spend my money on more clothes until I can see that the clothes that I bought you are going to last.
Maybe there's another boundary that you've set around being on time. You've made a request to someone to show up on time to a date that you have A boundary might be. I will wait there for 15 minutes and then I'm going to leave.
That allows you to not sit there and stew and resent somebody that's chronically late, but to let them know exactly what you're going to do and then follow through on it. So, when we set boundaries, we can truly love other people, because our happiness is not dependent on what they do and how they act.
When we match those boundaries with requests, we're really taking responsibility for moving things along that we care about, for making powerful requests around the ideas that we're trying to make real, but not tying our emotional reaction to what other people say and do.
So, our three steps around requests are to make powerful requests, clearly stated, set boundaries to accompany them and then allow and manage and process whatever feelings come up along the way. That's what I've got for you this week. My friends have fun with requests. Let me know how it goes and I will see you next week.
Thanks for hanging out with me, friends. If you like today's episode and you want more of them, please take two minutes right now to subscribe and give me a five-star review on Apple Podcasts. Then send this episode to a friend. See you next time.
