Conscious Mediocrity - The struggles of asking for what I truly want

I have spent the last year learning about what I don't want, listening to my heart, soul and trusting my intuition and not feeling guilty about saying NO. I realized I now need to learn how to ask for what I want. I'm not sure what exactly this all entails but I know it will take courage and require me to communicate clearly. I was initially thinking that I needed to take a course in communications but as I'm writing this, I know that I actually have no problems communicating other people's needs, just my own. 
 
The question is why? The easy answer is that I am afraid of rejection. This reasoning would have flown a year ago, but I believe there is more to it. When I was younger it was rarely about my needs and mostly about others. When I asked for what I wanted I was scolded, sent to my room, simply just a NO with zero explanation or logic. When I had those rare wins of getting what I wanted, it was generally a lot of hard work and tears that lead up to it, plenty of kicking and screaming. Can this experience translate into our adult life? I believe it does. 
 
I recently learned about Robert Augustus Masters thanks to my a friend who suggested I listen to his interview with Tami Simon who has her podcast, Sounds True: Insights at the Edge. The Topic: True Masculine Power. 
 
I picked up his book, To Be Man, A Guide to True Masculine Power. 
 
One of the things Robert Augustus Masters talks about is connecting the dots between your past to present. "Our go-to actions-our behavioural defaults-when things were very difficult when we were young likely will be what we resort to when things are similarly difficult now for us". 
 
We tend to write off our behaviour telling ourselves, this is just how I am. What makes it even more difficult is that those close to us tend to reinforce this. 
 
We talk about our habits and beliefs about who we are as if they are concrete innate facts where many of these things are actually a result of how we were raised and forced to be while growing up. It is nurture not nature. How did our parents and those close to us treat us all the time? My inability to ask for what I want is NOT embedded in my DNA, it’s through my experiences, both good and bad that impacts my behaviours in adult life. 
 
I've been so fearful to go after and ask for what I want, both big ask and the tiniest insignificant asks as well. 
 
The impact of asking for what I really wanted when I was a kid, but getting more nay's then yay's makes me hesitate to ask for what I truly want and desire, what excites me and lights up my soul and opens my heart, because I would rather avoid the possibility of a no because it leads to disappointment.  
 
I have no problem asking for something when I know its in the best interest of others or at least I can creatively convince myself and those in front of me that its in their best interest. I seem to be good at manipulating both parties. It is a very calculated way of getting what I need without the risk of disappointment and rejection and if I do get rejected its alright, because it wasn't something that I deeply wanted anyway. I like to call this conscious mediocrity. It only hurts when its something that really lights me up because asking for something that aligns with my heart and soul is putting myself at my most vulnerable state.