S1 E6: How to Ask for What You Want at Work and in Life, Relationship Skills for Professional Women

Your relationships, at work, at home, with friends, are either fueling you or draining you. And most of the time, the biggest obstacle isn't the other person. It's not knowing what you actually want, or not having the tools to ask for it clearly. In this episode, therapist and entrepreneur Liz Burgin gets specific about the interpersonal effectiveness skills that help professional women build healthier relationships, communicate with confidence, and stop sacrificing long-term goals for short-term peace-keeping.

Drawing from DBT's interpersonal effectiveness framework, Liz walks through how to describe a situation using facts, express your feelings without blame, assert your needs, and reinforce what you're asking for, whether that's a difficult conversation with your partner, a boundary-setting moment with your team, or a long-overdue ask for a promotion. She also covers the real work of making and keeping quality friendships as an adult, why ending destructive relationships is sometimes the most self-respecting thing you can do, and what strong conversational habits actually look like in practice.

If you've ever swallowed what you needed, over-explained your feelings, or kept the peace at the cost of your own, this episode is for you.

Together we will talk about:

• The most common barriers that get in the way of healthy relationships for driven women
• How to describe, express, assert, and reinforce what you need in any relationship
• Why not knowing what you want is the root of most relationship conflict
• How to build quality adult friendships, and the conversational habits that make or break them
• When to repair a relationship and when to walk away
• How to apply these skills in both personal and professional settings

One line to take away with you: "You are the person in charge of your relationships."

Connect with Liz at lizburgin.com

Keywords: relationship skills for women, assertive communication, how to ask for what you want, DBT interpersonal effectiveness, setting boundaries at work, women and friendships, adult friendships, difficult conversations at work, communication skills women leaders, people pleasing women, how to stop people pleasing, professional women relationships