Don’t Ask Don’t Get?

I am unsure if this is a gender difference, although in Linda Babcock’s book “why women don’t ask’ I am certainly sure she would name it as such, but whilst I was swimming this morning I noticed an interesting shift in me.
As a fairly proficient and certainly a keen swimmer, I realised that I have been waiting to be be noticed for my “Olympic swimming” potential for some four decades! Not Once Did It Cross My Mind To Ask or even say that this was a desire of mine. I truly believed that if I diligently practised then I would be noticed…….
On one level this made me grin. Olympic swimmer is not my ambition these days, but I was nevertheless conscious of the thought as I paced up and down, believing someone (anyone?), was noticing where I might have done better….. According to Babcock & Laschever 
“by neglecting to negotiate her starting salary for her first job, a woman may sacrifice over a half a million pounds in her career”
That’s a shocking statistic and to be honest with you, when I was offered my first ‘proper’ job, working for a newspaper, I was so grateful to get the position it would have never, ever have crossed my mind in a million years to ask for more money than they were offering!!!!!!
So it seems that some people have, until now, been Playing a different game to mine. Despite being brought up in a household where my mother was the major breadwinner, I did not truly believe that I could ask for what I wanted. In fact when it came down to it, for many years, as someone who could turn her hand to most things, I wasn’t even sure that I could pin down what I really wanted to do, which made it doubly difficult to ask.
I Still don’t know this is entirely gender based, but I do notice a pattern in my client base. Whereas many women will identify a professional desire and they will study it to PhD level before believing they are capable of doing the job. Often men will see an opportunity, go for it knowing they have most of what’s needed, then upskill themselves to fill in the gaps once they know this is point-full. A small difference in approach this might be, but when it comes to the metrics of who is earning most or who is doing the job that gets them the most satisfaction, then the differences can be huge.
I am pleased to say that on the whole I have stopped waiting to be asked. I had the startling discover my some years ago that mostly people are far too self-interested to even notice me at all, and, how freeing that had been! I have begun, step by step, to trust that I have the ability and the right to do exactly what I believe is right. I learn every day that I practise, and my CPD will be life long, but no longer will I ever wait until I have a PhD in something before I try it. It has been an amazing discovery for me to see that if I ask, I might just receive. Lovely, lovely to be ‘in the flow’ of life where I can ask things of others and they can ask things of me.
What might you need to ask for in order to reach your potential?

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