EP 172: Getting What You Want

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Transcript: 

 Happy Spring, Friend. I love Spring for so many reasons. The first of which is it's from a birthday. Literally my first day of Spring. Your first day of Spring. Spring, Equinox is my birthday.

So it's like my new year as if I need more New Year's. But I do because it's my personal new year. It's when I come out of hiding and out of hibernation. And every year, I am surprised by this personal renewal that happens around my birthday. So maybe you also come alive around me.

Mid to late March, and for you, I say Happy New Year to everyone that's been slogging through the winter. I see you, I am you, and I have been quietly practicing something I wanna share with you because it's my birthday. Many people have been asking, what do you want for your birthday?

What kind of presence would you like? What do you need? What can I do for you? What kind of treats would you like? What kind of day would you like? What kind of activities would you like? And it's a lot of pressure because I have a pre-teen, so when she's into me, she's really into me.

When she's not, she's really not. And my husband and my in-laws and my parents and my friends. And when everyone finds out it's your birthday, they're like, oh my God, what are you doing? It's like you get to be princess slash queen for the day. And I've mentioned recently that I have been feeling quite wobbly during this endless winter, which, it's like it's a gift because we haven't had a real winter here in quite a while.

But it's also. Takes a toll on my personal mental health. So I thought about this concept of wanting and people being really forthcoming with, what do you want, how do you want this to go? And this comes up a lot in my work because I'm constantly asking people, what do you want? I'll help you get there, but you have to define it.

And so I realize that can feel like an invasive question when you're. Prepared. What would be helpful now if you have yet to give yourself time to get grounded and be like? What would help my body? What would support my mental health? What would help with the clutter? What would help with the systems?

What would help remove friction from mine? So, I hit every green light, and everything works. And so, during March, I've been practicing with this question: What do you want? And honestly, ask me what would make my life easier if the people asking were honest. They are saying, no, I'm here to give you the thing your heart truly desires.

So I've been testing it, and this is what I found. I asked Carly and tried Revival to help me solve the mystery on my desk. Before we all came home to work at home, I'd been working at home for seven or eight years already. But the difference was most clients and most client work I was doing was on the phone.

A conference line, I had very few people I did Zoom sessions with, so I didn't need to worry about the age-old ring light, natural light, or lighting situation. I didn't need to worry about my angles; I didn't need to worry about any of that stuff. But starting in 2020, just like everyone else, I started staring at my own.

While I was at work, I thought, Ooh, girl, gotta figure this out. So again, like many people, I took the things I already had around my house. Let's be honest. I would stack the books and put my electronics on top of a lot of Amazon boxes and a lot of books. And depending on what kind of meeting I was having depended on what I was doing.

Intense the sun was and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. The long story is that I've been making due in my professional office for the last three years with a hodgepodge of not-quite-right tools for my job. And this low-key stressed me out the entire time because I don't know if, but if you have a bunch of random boxes on your desk, it feels cluttered and messy, and quite frankly, it isn't lovely.

So I asked Carly too because you know Carly from Tidy Revival. She has answers you would never think of because many people ask her the same questions. I literally was like, what do I do about this? Box situation. And she said you need a standing desk converter for your desk. And I said I don't even know what that is.

I'm gonna ask you right now if you are somebody using stacks of books on your desk for video calls, please Google standing desk converter right this second and go ahead and order yourself one because now I have this beautiful tabletop that. With the touch of one hand, a tray for my keyboard can raise and lower my desk.

So I can either sit on a chair or sit in my kind of sitting-up chair, which is a whole other situation that I've got this weird chair that's super comfortable for my back and my legs. I can have my desk higher or lower, and, Not only that, I looked fantastic after what, like, eight years of having this microphone, my microphone for this very show.

I finally have a permanent spot for it. My plants look great. Like it solved every problem. So how did I get this? I told my husband, y'all, this is what I want for your birthday. I just have to say the dude clicked a link, bought it, and it showed up. Then the next round of gifts happens. I said to my daughter, I would love it.

This is what I want from you today. I would love for you to take my birthday present, set it up for me, and then put all the recycling and the packaging into the bin without complaining. It's a new world order over here when you ask for exactly what you want because the next thing I know, I've got this gorgeous desk set up and narrate a piece of card.

It has all been taken to the recycling bin everywhere in my house. And my mind is blown. Cause I'm like, oh, to get rid of friction in my life and those little annoying things, I need to delegate. I need to tell the people around me what exactly I need for me to have less friction in my life.

And then I again started playing with like, where else could I employ this? Ask for what you want in the situation and see if you get it. Recently, excuse me, I was doing a workshop training for an organization, and I said, Hey, I wrote a. Since the last time we had training. And they said, yes, I know. And I said that's terrific.

Do you want some books? And I said, I can do a bulk rate at this amount, or you can buy them individually. I offered what I thought was a ridiculous amount of books, and she said, I'll take all those at the bulk rate. And I thought she wouldn't have said yes if I hadn't asked. She may have come up with this on her own.

So I took it as I'm just telling. There's this concept of it. I will attribute this to Tiffany Hahn, another coach and podcaster, who had a program called 100 Rejection Letters some years ago. And it was this idea that you have, that you put yourself out there, ask for people, and pitch your ideas.

You ask for what you want, and every time you get a rejection, you put a gold star on a piece of paper, and your goal for the year is to try to get a hundred rejections. The reason it was; I found it so intriguing is when I started putting myself out there and asking for what I wanted more often than not, even in situations where I was sure I would not be successful nine times out of 10.

People would say yes or they would say nothing. So yes is a yes, and nothing is not a no. So if I got nothing, I couldn't put a little gold star on a chart because I hadn't gotten a no. So my challenge for you, my friend, is for you to, maybe this weekend, go around yours. And just take a little clipboard piece of paper or the notes app on your phone and ask yourself, what are the little things or big things driving me bonkers in the space where I live?

What are the places in my life where we need systems that need attention or that just cause some conflict. So it could be not having a spot for your house keys or losing them, right? A doorknob that sticks. Maybe you lost the extra key for your house outside somewhere, or somebody took it and then didn't put it back.

There may be laundry on the floor because there's no laundry basket. Or there's be laundry on the floor because your laundry basket has a lid. And the people in your life seem to be allergic to lifting a lid to put something in a box that is me. Be careful, and be very generous with these people.

I am one of them. Maybe the error fryer basket is wobbly and needs a screw, or your favorite lamp needs a screw. These I, yes. I went through my life and was like, what else can I ask my family to care for? And these are all things in my home right this second. And I'm like, you know what we're gonna do this weekend?

We're gonna address all the friction. So let's take the wobbly air ba, the air fryer basket. My husband needs to learn how to use the air fryer. He has never used it. He does wash it, but the damn thing is unsafe, and it needs a screw, a this, and a that. And I simply, it's enough. It's annoying enough that I like it; I'm annoyed every time I use it.

But the idea that I am cooking food in this hoppy, And all I have to do is say to him, Hey, a gift for me. Are you doing stuff for me? This bugs me. So I was hoping you could take this to the hardware store, and I want you and the hardware guy to figure out how to fix this. I don't; I'm just gonna delegate this thing to you.

And you know what happened when I said that to him? He said okay. I said, great. Here's a lamp. Can you take this to the hardware store cuz it needs a nut, and I don't wanna do that. And he said, sure. What? So the point is this if you have wet towels on your bathroom floor because you don't have hooks, this weekend is the weekend to get the hooks, or for you to get the hooks and say to your spouse or your child, hang these up for our family, it's not hang it up for me. Still, it's like we have the power to solve many of these annoying problems.

Simply by noticing that we have needs. And simply by noticing that we are feeling friction, things are getting in our way, taking up our bandwidth and energy, and we can take care of them in 15 minutes. Let's go ahead and get those done right, and if you're the one that's taking on all the work in your house and fixing all the friction for everybody.

I'm gonna implore you to journal on that. Why are you the person who's solving everyone's problem? Why are you the person who makes everything seamless for everyone except you? Tough questions. So I would love to know what things in your life you're like, Found some friction that needs some help, and what you can delegate to your kids and your spouse, your housemates, whoever, a task rabbit, I don't care who does it.

Let's remove some friction from our lives simply by noticing and then asking for it to be done. Because you may find yourself surprised over and over that most people will say yes to your request. We gotta stop doing stuff for other people they can do, right?

We wanna make sure our kids are competent when they move out, but they can see a problem and take care of it. So we're gonna, we're gonna let go of doing everything for everyone else. We won't do that for spouses because they are capable of growing up, which we love very much. And that's gonna free up some time.

It's gonna free up some bandwidth and get us some energy back. All right, come on to Instagram, and be sure to tell me about the little things you're asking for. We're gonna flex our asking muscles. You can find me on Instagram at Tammy Hackbarth. You can also head to my website, tamihackbarth.com, where you can listen to all of it.

In our previous episodes, you can buy a copy of my book, The 100 Essential Guide to 100% GilF Free Self-Care, and you can find links to all the stuff I mentioned and episodes. And here's your reminder that I'm asking, that's right. Here's another ask. I'm asking for people. Who have been readers or were in my book club for the Essential Guide to Lead Ratings and reviews on all of the places where you can leave leading ratings and reviews for books, as well as leading ratings and reviews on this podcast.

Why is that important? Those ratings and reviews are how other people who need the messages in my books and podcasts for them to say, Real people have read this book. This may be helpful for me. Oh, real people really listen to this podcast. What is this about? Also, sharing the book, sharing podcast.

But those ratings and reviews are like, they're like pre-approval. They're like, this is worth your. That would be a small but profound impact you could have on me and my life; I appreciate that very much. So if you want to send those, take a screenshot and send them to me via email or DM on Instagram; I would love to hear from you.

And until next week. Remember that you matter too.