How to pray in a way that God can answer

Have the mind of Chrsit and the will of Christ. Remember the two overlapping circles. Left side is what I want, right side is that He wants. How much do they overlap? One way to help with this is to tack on "but if not" to my requests. 

And remember this: "I noticed that the things I want are largely circumstantial things—things based on the circumstances of life—while the things that God wants for me are mostly un-circumstantial (don’t look that up; it’s not really a word), or things relating to the state of my heart." LDS.org 4/12/2016