What you need to know about asking yourself what people want

Note: This is the second part of a series on finding out what people want. If you’ve not followed along, start here.

One of the most famous commandments in the Bible tells us to use ourselves as a standard for how to serve others:

“For all the law is fulfilled in one word, even in this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ ” -Galatians 5:14

I’m sure we all try to live by that standard, but I don’t think we exploit the principle to anywhere near its potential.

Putting it in a different context, I like to sum it up by saying, “If you want something, give that something.” Because if you want it, others are bound to want it too.

Two small, personal examples of how I’ve applied this:

• It motivated me to start interviewing, guest posting, and commenting more often.
• It’s  how I developed the whole “How to be interesting” series.

Anyway, all of this relies on asking and studying yourself and what you want to find out what other people want. This article explains some of the advantages and disadvantages doing that.

Advantages of asking yourself

1. You’re always available.

You don’t have to hunt for someone to ask or even make much of an appointment. You can almost always take a few moments (or longer) to consider what others might want.

2. You can feel the want.

With other methods, you have to trust what someone’s saying. When you ask yourself, you usually know what it feels like to have a particular want. This helps when it comes time to serve because you’ll have more motivation if you genuinely empathize with others.

3. You’re usually right in general terms.

You know what, say, security feels like and know what it’s like to want things like that. If you want those things, you can usually guarantee that others want them too. In fact, I’d go specific too, like give them specifically what you want until you know for sure they don’t want it.

Disadvantages of asking yourself

1. You can be wrong about details.

Sometimes, often times even, your own specific desires won’t align with others. You might not always know the specifics, like if someone wants to learn to paint pictures of daisies for a living. That’s pretty specific.

2. You have to indirectly apply what you want to others.

Even if you’re right, applying what you want to someone else is difficult. For example, just because you want security or specifically to pay off your house, what does that look like for someone else? How do you go about paying off that house for someone else? These questions are difficult enough to answer for yourself.

3. You can be influenced by selfishness.

Sure, this might also happen if you listen to others, but usually you can see through their selfishness. The problem is your own selfishness. Your own selfishness can blind you into pursuing something in the name of serving others when really it’s something you want and you’re using others to accomplish it.

Overall…

This indirect approach to finding out what people want is good because it’s personal and often provides massive motivation even though it usually needs to be refined with other methods. Understanding the strengths and weaknesses, though, will help you know when and how to use it most effectively.

Serving Suggestions:

(1) Be aware of your own desires. What do you really want? Not just the toys… what would really make you happy? As (almost) always, I’d suggest writing some of these down to force yourself to get extra clear on them.

(2) Now transpose what you want onto someone else. How can you give them what you want to get? How would it manifest for them? Write these down too and review often.

(3) Read the next part of the series: What you need to know about asking God what people want.