As it turns out, the whole “What do I want out of this (situation/ email/ program/ relationship/ meal)?” question shows up daily. Sometimes hourly. And this isn’t just a question for business owners, people. How often do you ask it to yourself? How often does someone else ask it from you? (hello, snarky waitress at the diner at 3am)
I answer this “What do I want?” question so often I have come up with a few ways to solve for the answer if I am stumped:
1) Don’t think about it. You know when you are looking for those damn sunglasses you leave all over the place and can never find (maybe even when they are on top of your very own head)? As soon as you stop thinking “Where did I leave those friggin’ things?!”, you find them. BAM. Like a magic fairy heard your question and delivered the sunglasses right to you. Overthinking things gets into a nasty cycle of your brain trying to sort thru that 6,384,752 point Rolodex of info it stores daily. Turn it off, shut it down, and then restart it. Any tech geek will tell you that’s the best first step.
2) Ask back “What am I offering first?” Ohhhh, this one. Yep. In the big kid world you better know what you are offering in order to know what you expect to get. Like Let’s Make a Deal in real life, right? Do you know you want a kick-ass LinkedIn testimonial to seal the deal on your new profile? What did you offer in exchange? (If you aren’t answering “An equally sublime testimonial that I actually already wrote and sent along with my request”, you may want to re-think that.)
3) Let it all go. Like walk away, take a break, a full on vacation if you must/can. Depending on exactly what you are pondering, this could be the first stop on the trip down Answer Lane.
4) Read my file of testimonials and love. Nothing makes you feel more warm and fuzzy than, well, warm and fuzzies. And a little mood boost puts ya in the mindset to love yourself and loving yourself leads to choosing from the heart and choosing from the heart is what you really WANT anyways so let’s just go there together, okay? Okay. (Note: start keeping all emails/ letters/ tweets/ and messages that praise you in some way or generally tell you how much you effing rock. These are key to this one)
5) Move. When I need to ponder something big (and “What do I want here?” can often be one of the biggest), I walk the dog. Literally. I grab my beloved boxer by the leash and off we trot. Sometimes it comes in the first block. Sometimes it takes a mile or two. More often than not though, it comes as I return home, blood pumping, head clear, heart happy. If you don’t have a dog of your own to walk, just go move. Strap on some sneaks and hit the pavement (or, better yet, the trails) and work. it. out. Blood pumping = answers flowing.
By the time you’ve read thru this, you’re probably answering some of your own most recent “What do I want here?” queries already. See how uplifting that is?
Now, I’m off to walk my dog and discover what exactly it is that I want out of my latest (really big) sale.
xo
