It’s A Yes

“What would you ask for if you knew the answer was yes?” This is a very important question that we need to ask and allow ourselves to dream wide and big in response.

We often assume the answer will be a no and so we don’t even bother to ask. But is this right? How many ‘yes’s have we missed out on because we preempted a ‘No’.

Thinking of your work environment, have you asked to lead that project, or put yourself forward for a new opportunity? Have you asked to be considered for that promotion, job swap or secondment opportunity?

The people we work with are not mind readers so we need to speak up and not be afraid of getting a ‘No’. After all we automatically get a ‘No’ by not asking at all.

What about in your personal life, what would you ask for, dream of, aspire for if you knew the answer would be a yes?

Would you share your thoughts and struggles rather than try to cope all alone? How many people would have loved to be there for you if only you allowed yourself to be vulnerable?

How about on a global scale, which problem would you want to solve if you knew the answer would be a yes – world hunger, malaria, finding a cure for a disease, human trafficking, child pornography, child slavery?

What about global warming, environmental pollution, waste management, cleaner energy, congestion or the big C (cancer)?

Growing up in Nigeria, I remember being sat in traffic and picturing cars that could move on roads and in water or cars that could lift off into the air and become a chopper.

I could see the problems but the solutions seemed so far fetched and impossible so they stayed as fantasies in my mind. Today, they are no longer far fetched.

What if I had aligned ‘yes’ to those ideas and was willing to commit to making the solutions a reality.

Bottom line is that we miss out on a lot when we stop at the problem or idea generation stages. And we are often the only ones standing in each other’s ways.

This has to stop. It will stop when we start having an expectation of possibilities rather than impossibilities. It will stop when we start expecting the answer to be a yes.

We will end up with more ‘yes’s than ‘no’s and that means we will have more fulfilled lives and a better world.

Children are great at practicing this and they keep asking long after we’ve said no in the hope that we would change our minds. And we often do because they don’t give up.

How about we adults take a leaf from their book and we stop giving up on our dreams, hopes, lives, families, relationship, and careers.

See this as a season of ‘yes’s and start asking. Thanks for reading my post. Have a great week and see you next week.