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Tool 83 · Develop yourself
Are we asking for different things, or asking for the same thing differently?
A guided 15 to 19 minutes conversation, here in TAIU. Two requests, side by side, before anybody compromises.
Position, or request?
Same direction, different speed, is not a conflict.
What have you never actually asked for?
What you'll look at
- 01Your request
- 02Their request
- 03The overlap
- 04The conflict
A note from Mark
A lot of conflict is two people describing positions rather than requests.
A position is what you say you want. A request is what would actually have to happen. They're rarely the same size.
When you write both requests on one page, the overlap is usually bigger than either person thought and the real conflict is smaller and clearer.
Occasionally the requests genuinely point in opposite directions. That's worth knowing early rather than late.
What you'll get
This will not sort you into a personality type.It will give you answers about your own life that you can test.
01
Two requests
02
The overlap
03
The real conflict
04
What to ask for
+
Your TAIU handover: a summary of what the conversation found, written so you can take it with you.
See everything included ↓
- 01What you are asking for
- 02What you think they are asking for
- 03Where those two overlap
- 04Where they genuinely conflict
- 05What is negotiable and what is not
- 06What has never actually been asked
- 07The rival reading
- 08What deserves protecting
- 09Where this goes next
When you finish
Bring it back to your tree.
Your tree is where TAIU keeps a picture of your whole life, in parts like work, money and health.
At the end, the conversation asks how Love feels for you right now, in your own words. It also asks what, if anything, would feel different. Nothing changes on your tree unless you say it changes.
The conversation writes this summary for you. Keep the sheet, print it or paste it into My Tree. Nothing from the conversation is stored by TAIU.
- Session
- Date
- The part of life this belongs to
- How you described it
- What would feel different
- What we found
- The alternative we tested
- What deserves protecting
- What should change, if anything
- Next actions
- What to notice or find out
- What remains unresolved
What now?
01 · Save it
Your request, clearly.
02 · Test it
Write both requests on one piece of paper.
See more ↓
What I would do
- 01
Write both requests down, one line each.
- 02
Strip out the history and the justification.
- 03
Mark the overlap first.
- 04
Be honest about what is not negotiable for you.
- 05
Make the one request you have only ever implied.
Test it
- 01
What are you asking for, in one sentence?
- 02
Where do the two overlap?
- 03
What have you never actually asked for?
The alternative
The usual reading is that two people want incompatible lives. Often they want the same thing at different speeds, and the disagreement is about sequence rather than direction. The reverse also happens. Two people describe a shared plan and the requests underneath it point in opposite directions, and pretending otherwise costs years.
Think about this
- What you are asking for, in one sentence.
- What they are asking for.
- Where the two overlap.
- Where they genuinely conflict.
- What you have never actually asked for.
Take this to Ask Mark
You have done the exercise. Now look again at what it found.
This looks at what you found and helps you understand it. It is not another exercise to repeat.
Take this to Ask Mark →Go a little further
Recommended by the TAIU community
What helped you?
If you've read, watched, listened to or tried something that helped you think about this differently, we'd like to hear about it.
We review recommendations before sharing them with the community.
Finished the exercise?
What did this uncover?
Tell us whether it helped and what you discovered. It takes less than a minute.
Before you start
Reading, if you would rather understand the question first.
Further thinking
Difficult Conversations
Douglas Stone, Bruce Patton and Sheila Heen
Perceived Partner Responsiveness
Harry Reis
The All-or-Nothing Marriage
Eli Finkel
See the thinking ↓
Book
Difficult Conversations
Douglas Stone, Bruce Patton and Sheila Heen
The central idea is that every difficult conversation is three conversations at once: what happened, how everybody feels and what it says about who we are. Most conversations go wrong because people prepare for the first and are ambushed by the third. Reading it before you say anything will change your opening sentence.
Article
Perceived Partner Responsiveness
Harry Reis
Reis argues that closeness rests on whether somebody feels understood, valued and cared for by the way you respond to them. It gives you a behavioural test for a quality usually described in feelings.
Book
The All-or-Nothing Marriage
Eli Finkel
Finkel shows how much modern couples ask of one partner, and why relationships can feel like failures when they are simply carrying more than any single relationship once had to.
Book
Boundaries
Henry Cloud and John Townsend
The book that put the word into general use, and it carries a strong prescriptive tone that will not suit everybody. Take the part that lasts: the distinction between what is genuinely yours to carry and what you have taken on because nobody else would. That question does more work than any amount of language about limits.
Book
The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work
John Gottman
Relevant when the exercise identifies a partner relationship as an area you want to work on.