165. Use Your Words

Have you ever really, really wanted something but for some reason, not asked for it directly?

Maybe you’re worried you’ll be perceived as rude.

Maybe you’re scared of being laughed at or made fun of.

Maybe you’re deeply afraid of being told no and feeling rejected.

Whatever the reason, I see this pattern all the time.

I see my clients not ask. Friends tell me stories where they don’t ask. And I’ve also been the person not asking so many times.

And I’ve seen the consequences of not asking.

The frustration. The disappointment. The resentment.

The opportunities missed out on.

The lack of connection with a significant other.

The inconveniences of going with the flow.

There’s this romanticized idea that it’s better to not have to ask. But why?

What’s the benefit of not communicating?

Things get so much better when you learn to use your words instead of waiting for things to just work out.

You get new clients, more flexible work hours, a steamier, more satisfying marriage.

And even better than that - you get a renewed sense of power and control over your life, your career, your relationships, and more.

This is a key skill for building a wildly satisfying life and I’ll teach you all about it in this week’s show. And bonus! I’ll be sharing an embarrassing story from my own life about a time I didn’t use my words.

My small group coaching program, Satisfied AF, is officially open for enrollment! Click here to schedule a consult call for Satisfied AF and we can figure out what’s not working in your life and career as well as how to transform it into something that delights you.


WHAT YOU’LL LEARN FROM THIS EPISODE:

  • An embarrassing story from my life about a time I didn’t use my words.

  • What happens when you don’t use your words.

  • The power of developing the skill of using your words.

  • What’s required of you to begin communicating openly with people.

LISTEN TO THE FULL EPISODE:

FEATURED ON THE SHOW:

FULL EPISODE TRANSCRIPT:

This week we’re talking about using your words.

The Satisfied AF podcast is the place to learn how to create a life and career that’s wildly delicious. Want a steamier sex life? We’ve got you. Want a more satisfying career? We’ll cover that too. And you can be sure we’ll spend lots of time talking about how to build connected, fun relationships that can handle life’s ups and downs. No matter what goals you’re working on, this show will help you create a one of a kind life that is just right for you. Join me, life and career coach Kori Linn and each week I’ll give you lots of practical tips, tools, and proven strategies to help you create all the satisfaction your heart desires.

Hello, hello, hello, happy Wednesday. It’s almost the holidays over here, for me. I do celebrate Christmas and New Year’s and I’m pretty excited about it. I really enjoy this, which for me is a slower time of year. I take a few weeks off. I’m actually off right now, but I recorded this ahead of time. And I like to reflect and just think about what happened this year, what’s happening next year.

And even though it’s cold and cold is not my preferred weather, I like to snuggle up and be cozy. I love the colorful lights and decorations. And I’m just really enjoying the winter and I hope you are too.

This week I have a very fun topic, fun for me, I say that all the time. But it’s also super useful. And before we dive in, I want to tell you a story about a time when I did not do the thing that I’m going to be inviting you to do today. And it’s kind of an embarrassing story, but I think it’s going to be helpful for y’all, so I’m going to tell you about it.

So a few years ago, my girlfriend and I went out of town and we were going to visit a friend. A lovely, wonderful friend. And we got there and we got off the plane and we were starving. And we were in the airport, so we could have grabbed some food but we decided not to. We thought let’s just get out of the airport, we’ll go with our friend and we’ll go to a restaurant or we’ll find food somewhere.

And so the friend picked us up and the friend was like, oh, I have food at the house for us, let’s go back to the house. And so we went back to the house and we got there and the food that the friend had was a cheese plate, which is a very lovely thing. And I can eat some cheese, but I mostly don’t eat a ton of dairy for the last few years because I did an elimination diet and when I tried to add the dairy back in I had some really bad reactions.

But right around this same time, someone had told me about these pills that I could take that would maybe help with the reactions and they did. So I had just started taking those pills and I did have them with me. And the pills kind of meant like I could have some dairy, but I was still kind of trying to figure out how much. But people knew that I could have some dairy because I had been talking about it and how excited I was.

Anyways, the point is, the friend served a cheese plate. So most of the food represented was cheese. And there were olives and I remember eating one and it had cheese inside it, which is delicious if you can have cheese. But if you were looking for something to eat that’s not cheese, that’s not going to work so well. And I was so upset and I kept waiting for Alex to say something about how Kori is going to need different food.

And I kept waiting for the friend to realize I’m going to need different food. And no one realized and, y’all, I didn’t say anything. And this is why I wanted to do a podcast about using your words because this is the kind of thing that happens all the time and creates conflict and we get into fights because we think something should be obvious and other people should be looking out for us. But we’re not using what we have, our voice, our words, our opinions, et cetera.

And I realize sometimes there’s really valid reasons not to use your words, but this is not one of those situations. Everyone would have been very receptive if I had been like, hey, I’m going to need to have some food that’s not dairy. Like we need to either stop somewhere on the way or is there something else I can eat here? But I didn’t do any of those things because I thought people should just know.

And so there was some kind of event, so we went to a bar, where I proceeded to have a glass of wine even though I had eaten basically almost nothing and I was hungry and there wasn’t food at the bar. And I still didn’t say anything. Y’all, I didn’t say anything. This is why I was like, it’s kind of an embarrassing story because now I’m like, why didn’t I say anything? What a weird fucking thing to do to be like, I’ll just be quietly angry at everyone.

But I also think it’s not that weird of a thing to do, because I did that a lot growing up and I’ve seen that a lot from other people where on one level, for the person who I was in that moment, for some reason it made so much sense to me to just be furious with everyone and don’t ask for what you want and don’t tell them you need something.

And I picked a huge fight with Alex that night. I remember I was texting my best friend, Monet, she lives in China. Well, now she doesn’t. I’m telling the story in the most hilarious off the rails way, but it’s fine.

So basically, I was texting my best friend about how upset I was. I looked up plane tickets to go home. I just want y’all to notice and appreciate and delight with me, that’s who and how I used to be. And I already had a coaching business at that point. This is not 15 years ago, this is just a few years ago. And I thought that was just how I was, right? Like that was normal.

And now I’m just like, what in the world? Because now I have all these new skills and all these new abilities, and I have a deeper and more profound respect for myself and what I need. And I have a deeper and more profound respect for other people and the fact that they’re just living their own lives doing their best, and it’s not their job to intuit or mind read what I need and provide it for me.

And I think we sometimes create so much suffering for ourselves by refusing to use our words. I can’t tell you how many times in conversations with actual people in my life, but also like in movies and TV, people are like, oh, if I have to tell them what I want and then they do it, it doesn’t matter or then I don’t want it. And I think this is just wild.

I remember coaching someone a few years ago about how they didn’t want to tell their significant other something that they wanted. And I was like, but would you go to a restaurant and expect them to know what you wanted? I realize there are a few restaurants who do that, but generally we go to a restaurant, we look at the menu, we decide what we want. And then we use our words to tell someone and then they bring it to us. And if there’s a mistake, then we have to use our words again to tell them there’s a mistake.

But there’s this romanticized idea that people should just know and that they should read our minds and that that’s better in some way. And if you manage to develop a life where things magically unfold like that, good for you. But what I see again and again in my own life and the lives of my friends and clients, is that shit does not happen.

And if you don’t have the ability to use your words, then you wind up in situations you don’t want to be in. Your needs don’t get met. Your preferences are, I can’t even call them ignored because if we don’t tell anybody what they are, they can’t actually be ignored. They’re just unknown, right?

And I think there’s so much joy and delight and pleasure and satisfaction, and fulfillment and meaning available to, but so often you are going to need to use your words to get it. And I don’t even think that’s a bad thing. Obviously, from my story, it was really hard for me at that time.

Oh, and by the way, at the end of that night I got into a huge fight. I was crying so hard as I was leaving the bar that the bouncer went and got me napkins. And I was telling everyone about how I was hungry and I had to have food and why didn’t they know that? And they were absolutely bewildered.

And this is Alex Luchini, who we love and adore. You know she’s an incredible partner and so kind and so thoughtful, but not a mind reader, right? And the friend that we were with is also an incredibly kind, incredibly thoughtful person who goes above and beyond to provide for people and delight them and take care of them.

But again, I had just started taking those dairy pills. Either it didn’t occur to them that I might not be able to eat the food that was available, or they thought because now I had the dairy pills I could. But it’s actually not their job to make sure I can eat the food. It’s actually my job to be like, oh, I have a need, I need to eat. This is not going to work for me. We need to either stop on the way or I need to go somewhere that has something I can have.

And Alex and I obviously recovered from that fight, and bless her for sticking around with me because that was a mess, y’all. I was so mad at her for not reading my mind and intuiting what I needed in that moment. And the friend and I are still friends and are close. And we have a much better relationship, not that we had a bad one then.

But when you develop this ability to use your actual words, to tell people what you want, to tell people what you need, to advocate for yourself, when you don’t depend on other people to just guess and provide for you, you can have really, really wonderful things happen in your life. You can have much better experiences.

You can have relationships that really delight you. And you can also let the relationship be what it is and not expect the relationship to read your mind and provide everything for you, which it’s not going to do. And so when you stop expecting the relationship to do that, you can really appreciate what is available there instead.

And I want to be really clear that there wasn’t anything wrong with the Kori from all those years ago, or not that many years actually, who did that. I’m not saying she was bad in any way. I think she was doing what she knew how to do with the tools and skills she had, with the assumption she had about the world and how it should work, with the thoughts and perspectives she had about other people and the way they should show up for her.

So we’re not shitting on her, but I do think she was much less happy than I am now because what she could create with those tools and skills and assumptions and perspectives was extremely limited. And it didn’t have the depth or breadth or vibrant color of what I’m able to create now.

And one of the key ways I’m able to do that is by using my words. It is by communicating with other people, and I think really communicating with a lot of skill if I do say so myself. And that took a lot of practice and a lot of time and a lot of thinking about who do I want to be in relationships? It takes a lot of connection orientation, which is a concept we have a whole podcast episode on.

It takes a lot of thoughtfulness. It takes a lot of, like I dig into why do I think someone else should just know this? Or why do I think they should do it? Or if they did do that or if they did magically know, what would I make that mean? And then, I’m a coach, so I spend a lot of time kind of thinking through what my brain expects and what I think I would get to have if things were that way and what it is I’m actually trying to create for myself.

But that night, all I was trying to create for myself was a dinner. And I wasn’t able to do it with the skill set I had at that time. And now I would be able to. And I’m so excited to see what my ability to use my words and my commitment to using my words is going to create for me coming up next.

Like what will I create in 2024? What will I create in 2025? What will I create over the next 10 years because I have honed this skill, because I have built up the courage and emotional resiliency and the emotional core strength to be able to use this skill?

And I truly believe it’s going to be magical things. And that is why today on this podcast, I want to pitch you on the concept of you using your words. What are the things that need to be said that you’re not saying? What are the things you want to ask for that you’re not asking for? What are the things that you want that you’re absolutely committed to not asking for? And why are you so committed to not asking for them?

What do you want your life to be like? And how could you make your life one or 10 or 20% more like that today by using your words? What could shift in your parenting? What could shift in your romantic relationship? What could shift in your hobbies?

What could shift in your career or business if you developed even a little bit more of a capacity to use your words, to make direct requests, to set boundaries, to enforce boundaries, to negotiate for more of what you want and, honestly, just to help other people understand who you are and what is meaningful to you.

If you’re willing to give up that romantic idea that people should just know, what could you get? What could you get that’s actually so much better than other people just knowing? And in this holiday time of year, I also know this can be a time when things can feel really fraught.

Maybe we’re seeing people that it’s hard for us to use our words around or towards. Maybe people want to talk about topics that we don’t want to talk about. Maybe people want us to perform holiday duties or obligations we don’t want to perform. And so I want to also invite you to be gentle with yourself.

I don’t think you need to go from zero to 60 in using your words. But what would it be like to go from zero to one? What would it be like to go from one to two? And how can you cultivate just a little bit more of the experience you want to have through this skill of using your words?

And one more thing is just to remember if you’re new to the skill of using your words, it might be a little rough and rowdy at the beginning. Sometimes when people are just beginning to set boundaries, they set boundaries in kind of aggressive ways. And that’s okay because when we learn to do new things, we don’t do them perfectly. We do them with the skill level we have. And if we don’t have any skill level, then it’s probably going to be kind of a rough chop, right?

And that might be the same for using your words. So if you try using your words and it’s a little more gentle than it turns out it needs to be or a little bit more assertive than it turns out it needs to be, that’s okay. You can still praise and celebrate yourself that you did such a good job trying this new tool, and you can evaluate and become more skillful and nuanced as you go. You’re doing a great job and just trying is such a big deal and something to be deeply celebrated.

Also, if the idea of using your words sounds like pure magic and exactly what you need to achieve your goals, to improve your relationships and to take your career from surviving to thriving, but you don’t really want to work on it on your own, I invite you to come sign up for a consult call with me. We can have a whole 50 minute talk about what this would look like for you and what would become available, what you could accomplish.

And if it seems like a good fit, I can tell you about how we could work together. I would love to help you find the power of your words and use them to create more of what you want and more of what delights you and more of what makes the world feel magical to you. That’s what I have for you all this week. Have a lovely time and I will talk to you next week. Bye.

Thank you for joining me for this week’s episode of Satisfied AF. If you are ready to create a wildly delicious life and have way more fun than you ever thought possible, visit www.korilinn.com to see how I can help. See you next week.
 

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166. Saying Goodbye to 2023

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164. How to Enjoy the Holidays