Relationship Patterns Aren't Fixed

This week has taught me something that is quietly helpful; we get better at asking for help over time.

I don't know who my dad borrowed the wild idea from, but as a teenager I remember him telling me "Morgan, the quality of your life will be determined by the questions you ask yourself and others."

Maybe dear old Dad was just super insightful. Maybe he knew I'd grow up to be a coach.

But I think he may have noticed my impulse to "just do things on my own." It was a trait I shared with him...maybe he knew the limitations of failing to get input, ideas, pushback, and wisdom from others. Maybe he was just trying to make me break out of my inner world to keep growing with others.

But this week I learned a different dimension of the "ask questions to improve your life." I realized that even in established relationships, our patterns of listening aren't fixed. If we are brave enough to experiment, we can ask a question a different way than we did in the past. We can actually get better at asking for help, insights, and new ideas.

As a coach these past 12 years, I've noticed that many of us feel the least able to ask people we know best for help on big things. We might ask a stranger how they do something big. (No relationship capital at risk there.) But with intimate friends we can feel uncertain about asking tough questions that reveal our vulnerability, uncertainty, or needs. We don't want to worry a partner, confuse a colleague, or appear unqualified to a boss, less-than-brilliant to a thinking partner.

But that means the people closest to us rarely get asked for our input or advice. We wait until we're desperate (leaving us too vulnerable), or totally confident (leaving us inflexible to input) before asking questions. But when we do that we miss out on our own learning curve with questions. Every time you experiment with trying to get help from others, you can learn a bit about how to communicate more clearly, listen more fully, and extract insights more creatively.

If you've got uncertainty in your life right now, asking for perspective on it from people who are close to you can provide shockingly useful, practical, or even humorous ideas. If you've had bad experiences asking for others to share some perspective or help you brainstorm in the past, aim for one of these re-calibrations in your questions:

• How can I be a little more honest about my concerns?
• What would be helpful as context to my question?
• How can I be a little more specific in my request?
• Can I give better permission to my thinking partner to share out-of-the-box ideas?
• What would happen if I explored the ideas others offer, without needing to decide if they're "right" or "wrong" about the situation?

Anytime we exercise our question skills, we make room to get stronger.

I think the big takeaway for me is the reminder that the experiences we've had in the past don't determine how things will go in the future; our response to them does. That means that we can get better at asking for help, thinking with others, and borrowing the insights and confidence of others.

And we don't have to wait to find new friends to practice on. We can get better, right where we're at, with the people already in our lives.