Just Ask!

Wow. It’s only my second blog and already I have readers! Thank you so much to everyone who took the time to read my first blog and thank you for all the encouragement! In the past 24 hours, I’ve had several friends and family members reach out to me to let me know that they read my blog. So now, it appears that I’m going to be held accountable. I’ve started a new voyage and now it’s time to follow through!

“Ready-Fire-Aim.”

I mentioned yesterday that the “Ready-Fire-Aim” approach is the approach I’m taking for my blog: First, I got “Ready.” I did some research about blogging, and what makes a successful blog. I considered what I want to write about and what my goals were for my blog. Then I decided to “Fire.” I just went for it and started writing. Throughout the next few months I’ll work on figuring out my “Aim” and figure out what’s working, what’s not, and adjust my blog accordingly.

But sometimes people take the “Fire-Fire-Fire” approach to life…

Today, I’ve been thinking a lot about one of the biggest lessons I’ve learned in the past few months. My message/advice for today is to JUST ASK! “Just Ask” is an easy yet important tool to achieving goals that I think people often fail to consider. It is a crucial part of the “Ready” phase of the “Ready-Fire-Aim” method. If you forget to get “Ready” and just start to “Fire” you may end up lost and off course. Or you may end up working much too hard for far too little.

Let me explain. I’m a very goal oriented person. Often times, I decide that I want something and I get so excited about the goal and want it so badly that I just go for it and take action right away. But how do I know what actions to take? Here’s a personal example from my life: for quite some time now, I’ve been practically obsessed with my body and my physical fitness. I would continually set goals for how I want to look, how much I want to weigh, how big I want my biceps to be, etc. But then, I would just go to the gym and try to figure it all out on my own. I think a lot of people are like me. Maybe they know what they want, and they’re ready to take action to get it; but they forget to take time to research and ask questions to figure out the best way to achieve their goal.

Pretty much no matter what your goal is, there is someone out there who has already achieved it. There are many successful personal trainers and fitness experts who have written books, articles, made videos, etc. that have great advice to offer. All I had to do was ask! I was potentially wasting time working hard when I could have been working smart instead. All you have to do is find someone who has already accomplished what you want to accomplish and ask them how they did it! This advice can be applied to so many areas of your life: school, work, relationships, etc. It’s been my goal to be a retail buyer for quite some time, but do you know that it took me three years of working in retail before I ever took the time to really sit down with a buyer and ask them how they got their position or what factors enabled them to get their job!

I don’t know why people don’t “just ask” more often. It seems obvious now, and yet I still have to remind myself to do it. Maybe we forget to ask because we think the answers ought to be obvious. Maybe we don’t ask because of our pride, or ignorance, or maybe we sometimes feel like we don’t deserve to ask. But all of these reasons are completely ridiculous. If you’re interested in getting in shape, or getting a better job, or having a successful relationship; a great place to start is by asking someone who already has those things, how they got them. Of course, there are sometimes many different paths to achieving the same thing. What worked for one person, may not work for you. But it very well could, and you have absolutely nothing to lose by asking! So my challenge to you, reader, is that the next time you have a goal you want to achieve, start by asking others what’s worked for them.

Xoxo

Micah