You are listening to the Less Drama More Mama podcast, episode 404: Asking For What You Want
This is Less Drama More Mama. The podcast for moms who want to feel calm, in control, and confident about how to handle anything life throws their way. If you’re ready to go from feeling frazzled and disrespected to feeling calm and connected, this is the podcast for you. I’m your host, Pam Howard.
Hey Mama, welcome back to the show. Oprah Winfrey once said, “You get in life what you have the courage to ask for.” I believe that if you aren’t getting what you want in life, a big part of the reason is that you’re not asking for it. When’s the last time you asked for what you wanted?
Asking doesn’t come easy for many moms. Not with their partners, not with their kids, not with friends, not at work. They have a really hard time just saying “this is what I want” without immediately watering it down. And it costs them. In resentment. In exhaustion. And in feeling like nobody actually sees them. Today we’re talking about why we don’t ask, what gets in the way, and how to start doing things differently.
I always say: if you don’t ask, you don’t get. But asking isn’t as straightforward as it sounds. There are four styles of communication: passive, aggressive, passive-aggressive, and assertive. Most of us were never taught how to be assertive, so we bounce between the other three. Let me walk you through them so you can see which one sounds most like you. First, there’s passive — you don’t ask for what you want. You probably don’t even know what you want. An example of passive behavior might be wanting your kid to clean their room, but instead of asking, you clean it yourself and silently stew about it. Then there’s aggressive. Instead of asking respectfully, you’re pushy and demanding. Sometimes you get what you want, but it comes at a cost to the relationship. And a lot of the time, it backfires. People don’t respond well to being bullied. Passive-aggressive is the mix of the two. You don’t ask directly, but your frustration leaks out. For example, your kid leaves their dirty dishes on the table and instead of addressing it directly, you clean them up and then act snippy with them for the rest of the evening. The tension is there, everyone feels it. Your frustration is communicating for you, just not in a way that gets you anywhere. And then there’s assertive. You ask for what you want clearly and directly, while respecting yourself and the other person. For example, you go to your teenager and say, “I’m gonna go to bed now. Would you please turn down your music so I can fall asleep?”
Of all four styles, passive is the one I see most often in my work with moms. And it shows up in places you might not even recognize as passivity. For example, you’re at a restaurant. The food comes out and it’s not what you ordered. Or it is what you ordered, but it’s just not good. And you just eat it. You smile at the server, say “it’s fine,” and sit there for the rest of the meal eating something you don’t want while everyone else enjoys their food. Why? Because asking for what you want can feel like making a scene, being difficult, or too much. So you choose a mediocre meal over a ten-second awkward moment. If it’s hard to advocate for yourself over something as simple as a meal you’re paying for, it’s going to feel a lot harder to do it in the moments that really matter, like asking for support at home, or speaking up when something doesn’t feel right for your child at school.
Here’s another example. You’d like a favor, some help, a small thing that would make your life easier. But you will not ask for it. You won’t ask your neighbor, your friend, or even your sister. But if someone offered? Well, that’s a different story. You’d say yes in a heartbeat. You’re not opposed to receiving. You just won’t be the one to initiate the ask. You’ll rearrange your entire schedule, do something the hard way, figure out how to manage alone — before you’ll pick up the phone and ask someone for a favor. Does that sound familiar?
This kind of passivity doesn’t always feel like avoidance from the inside. It can feel like independence. It can feel like being considerate. It can even feel like strength. But what it actually is — is a ceiling on how much support you’ll allow yourself to have. And you don’t even realize you’ve put that ceiling there.
Think about it from the other direction. When a good friend calls and asks you for a favor, do you feel burdened? Or do you feel glad she asked? Do you feel inconvenienced, or do you feel trusted? Most of us, when someone we love asks for something we can actually give, feel good about it. We want to help. We want to be the person they called. When you refuse to ask, you’re taking that away from the people who care about you. You’re deciding for them that it’s too much before they’ve even had the chance to say yes. Asking isn’t an imposition. It’s an act of trust. It says, “I believe you care about me enough to want to show up.” And most of the time, you’re right.
So why is this so hard? First, many of us got the message early that our wants and needs were too much. At some point, for a lot of us, asking didn’t go well. Our wants were dismissed, we were made to feel like we were inconveniencing someone. Or the adults around us were so stressed that we stopped asking in order to protect them. We developed a belief that “My needs are a lot. I should handle things myself.” That belief helped us stay safe and feel accepted. But it doesn’t mean our needs are actually too much. Everyone has needs and wants. That’s part of being human. When you’re operating from that belief, of course asking feels hard. It’s not just a request. It feels like you’re doing something wrong.
The second reason asking for what we want is hard is the expectation that they should just know. “If my partner really loved me, he’d notice I’m running on empty and offer to help.” “If my friend was paying attention, she’d see that I’m struggling.” We all want to be known that well. We want the people who love us to just get it without us having to spell it out for them. Then we end up disappointed when they don’t give us something they didn’t even know we wanted. This is what I refer to as your “manual” for another person. A manual is an invisible instruction guide for how you want someone to behave so you can feel good. I recommend letting go of your manuals and taking responsibility for how you feel instead. If you’d like to hear more about manuals and how to let go of them, check out episode 18 of the podcast. I’ll link to it in the show notes.
The third thing that gets in the way of asking for what we want is guilt. We think, “I don’t want to be a burden.” “They’re already dealing with so much.” When you try to protect people from feeling burdened by your needs, you’re trying to manage other people’s feelings. That’s not your job. Other people get to decide what they have the capacity for and how they want to respond. It’s not your responsibility to make sure they don’t feel burdened. It’s theirs. When the guilt shows up — and it will at first — notice it, feel it, and ask anyway.
The fourth reason it’s hard to ask for what we want is the fear of rejection. Hearing no feels like confirmation. Like, see? My needs are too much. I’m too much. I shouldn’t have asked. It was a mistake. But here’s what I want you to consider: a no is just information. And sometimes, it’s one step closer to a yes, just not from that person, or not in that moment. Sometimes you need to provide more information about what you’re asking for or why it matters to you. For example, let’s say you ask your partner for a night to yourself and he says it’s not a good time. Instead of instantly dropping it, you say, “I hear you, but I’ve been running on empty and I just need a few hours to reset. Can we figure out when that could happen?” That’s not nagging. It’s advocating. Maybe you ask your spouse to do something with you — take a walk, go to a concert, or just sit down and watch TV together — and they decline your invitation. Instead of shutting down or feeling bothered, you say, “I know it sounds like a little thing, but I really want us to do this together. It matters to me because it helps me feel more connected to you.” Or you ask a friend for a favor and she says she can’t do it. Instead of immediately saying “no worries, forget it,” you say, “Is there any part of it that you could help with?” You’re not pressuring her. You’re giving the ask a real chance before you let it go. Asserting yourself isn’t being pushy. It’s taking your own needs seriously enough to make sure they’re heard and understood. Of course, not every no is going to turn into a yes. Some no’s are final, and you do have to let those be. But the difference between accepting a no gracefully and just rolling over is whether you showed up for yourself first. And whether you gave the ask a real chance. What you don’t want to do — no matter what — is decide that asking was wrong, that you should have known better, or that you’ll never put yourself out there like that again. A no doesn’t mean you shouldn’t have asked. It just means you may need to find a different way to get what you want.
There’s a fifth reason — and this one is interesting, because it doesn’t happen before the ask. It happens after. Someone says yes, and instead of relief, you feel pressure because you think, “Now I owe them.” You’re already calculating what you’re going to have to do in return, thinking about how to make it even. You’ve turned someone doing something nice for you into a debt you now have to pay back. This is a trap. And it makes receiving feel almost as uncomfortable as asking. Most people who say yes to you aren’t keeping score. They say yes because they want to. Because they care about you. Because being helpful to someone they love feels good to them. And yes, relationships are reciprocal. You show up for your people and they show up for you. But that’s not debt. That’s just how people take care of each other. You’re allowed to let someone help you without immediately figuring out how to pay it back.
When you look at all of these reasons, there’s a thread running through all of them: your nervous system doesn’t feel safe to ask. Your body learned that asking leads to something bad. Rejection. Shame. Conflict. Disappointment. So your nervous system pulls you toward what feels familiar — staying quiet and handling it yourself. And that pattern will keep repeating until something shifts at a deeper level.
The inspiration for this episode actually came from moms in my community who wanted to know how to create the Mother’s Day they want. So many moms walk into that day hoping to feel seen and appreciated, and end up feeling let down. And when you trace it back, it’s almost always because she didn’t ask for what she wanted. She hinted, or she said “whatever you want to do,” or she just hoped the people who love her would figure it out. I want you to take a moment and ask yourself: What do I really want this Mother’s Day? And if that question draws a blank, try this one: If I knew no one would be upset or burdened by my answer, what would I want? That version of the question has a way of getting to the truth a lot faster. Do you want to sleep in? Go out for brunch at your favorite restaurant? Do you want a few hours alone? A particular gift? Whatever it is, know the answer before the day gets here. And then ask for it. Say to your partner, your parents, or your kids, “For Mother’s Day this year, I’d really love this. Can we make that happen?” Your family wants to celebrate you and delight you. And they need clear information if they’re going to have any chance of getting it right.
For some of you, this is bigger than one Sunday in May. The same thing that stops you from asking for what you want on Mother’s Day is stopping you everywhere else. It’s stopping you from asking for more help at home. It’s stopping you from asking for a raise at work. It’s stopping you from setting limits with family members who overstep. It’s stopping you from calling a friend and saying, “I’m really struggling and I need to talk.” It’s stopping you from saying out loud what you actually want from the people who love you the most.
When you don’t ask, you’re choosing the discomfort of not having what you want over the discomfort of asking for it. So if you’re going to feel uncomfortable either way, you might as well give yourself a chance to get what you want.
I challenge you to practice being more assertive this week. Pick one thing you’ve been hinting at, avoiding asking for, or silently resenting not having — and just ask for it directly. Tell your partner exactly what you want for Mother’s Day. Call a friend and ask her for a favor instead of handling something alone. Ask your kids for something — some help, some space, some basic consideration you’ve been waiting for them to offer on their own. Whatever’s coming to mind right now — the thing that makes you want to skip past this part — that’s probably the one to choose. If the mere thought of that makes your body immediately tighten up, start smaller. Ask someone to pass you something at the dinner table. Ask for directions even when you have your phone. Ask the barista to fix your order if it’s wrong. These might feel almost too small to count, but that’s the point. You’re giving your nervous system evidence, in tiny doses, that asking for what you want is safe. That nothing terrible happens. That’s how you build toward the bigger asks. By taking small enough steps that it starts to feel possible.
And then, when you do ask, there are only a few ways it can go. If the answer is yes, let yourself receive it without immediately turning it into something you now owe back. If the answer is no, decide if it’s worth staying in the conversation. Explain why it matters. Advocate for yourself. If the no is truly final, let it be, without making it mean anything about you. You might be thinking, ‘Well, even if I ask, it’s not going to go the way I want.’ That might be true. Asking doesn’t guarantee the outcome. But it gives you a real chance at it instead of no chance at all.
And there’s one more piece here. You’re not just practicing asking. You’re practicing trusting yourself to handle whatever comes next. Whether the answer is yes, no, or something in between, you’ll be ok. You can handle it. You can receive a yes without guilt, and you can receive a no without making it mean something about you. Remember, you get in life what you have the courage to ask for.
And if you’re recognizing that asking, receiving, and letting yourself have support is something you struggle with, that’s part of what we work on inside Damn Good Mama.
Not just the behavior on the surface, but what’s underneath it. What you believe you deserve, and what you’re actually willing to let yourself have. Head to lessdramamoremama.com if you want to know more. Have a wonderful and happy Mother’s Day on Sunday. And I’ll talk to you again next week. Bye.
