Are You willing to ask for Help?
It’s unclear to me why so many people struggle to ask for help. Through all the years of my adult life, I’ve grown to feel comfortable asking for help and have a strong history of knowing 1) when I really do need to ask for help, 2) why it’s important to ask for help, and 3) whom I should be asking. It’s this 3-step process that’s evolved over years of trial and error that has led me to the place I find myself today. It’s based on wisdom that comes from aging and being able to define when “not asking for help” is simply foolish and a waste of valuable time.
The development of my thought process resulted in dividing the need for help into two categories, trivial and serious. What drives a person’s unwillingness to ask for help into the trivial category? Usually, it’s our ego. Ever since World War II, all of us were driven to be self-sufficient, to think for ourselves, to be independent, responsible, and my personal favorite, creative problem solvers. Success was to be achieved independent of having to ask for help. It’s almost like it didn’t count if we had to ask for help from others. School was the same as the grading system was meant to reflect exactly what we were capable of without being helped by someone else. So, we were strongly influenced to never ask for help.
What drives a person’s unwillingness to ask for help into the serious category? Usually, it’s some sort of fear connected to what others may think. This is especially concerning when it comes to the mental health crisis in our current culture. While there isn’t a single solution that serves everyone, there are many potential solutions that can be explored to help people…but only if they ask for help. It’s the same with any form of addiction. Most of the time, people are unable to beat an addiction without some form of help. Help only becomes available when someone asks.
Males have been especially susceptible to ridicule or bullying if they were ever caught asking for help. It resulted in that whole masculine bravado thing that we grew into. That’s why men would rather have pins stuck under their fingernails than having to ask for directions. That forced men to get creative in the avoidance of asking for help.
Example? Okay, a married couple, while traveling in a vehicle to an unfamiliar area, the conversation goes something like this: Wife says, “Are we lost?” Husband responds “No, we’re on an adventure.” Wife counters with “Can you define the adventure?” Husband (smirking) replies “I’m letting the adventure define itself.” Wife offering advice “Why don’t you use the directions app on your phone?” Husband reminding his wife “Those direction apps are for amateurs.” Wife finishing the conversation states the obvious “So, we’re lost!”
Women have rightly earned and gained a lot of independence over the last several generations and may find it hard to ask for help so as not to appear weak. While researching this, I concluded that asking for help is NEVER a sign of weakness and is actually a sign of thoughtful intelligence. That’s why the 3-step process described above can be so effective.
Knowing WHEN to ask for help increases the speed to receiving what you need. Knowing WHY you’re asking for help shows that you’ve spent time looking for a solution and need to tap into other resources from people that have specific and related skill sets beyond your own in a particular subject area. Having your WHEN and WHY defined points you in the direction of whom to ask for help.
Small business owners can’t afford a compensated “Board of Directors” like large corporations. Early in my career I read that Small business owners experienced the greatest success by securing a pseudo board of directors made up of their Attorney, CPA, Banker, and Insurance Agent. While owning a small business, each of these individuals played an important role whenever I needed their help in their area of expertise.
I added a 5th person, who was an industry consultant. She oversaw a Cost Group I was a member of. It was this group of people and my pseudo board, along with several people that mentored me, that led me to develop the phrase: EVERYTHING I AM AND ALL OF MY SUCCESS – I OWE TO OTHERS. I believe that if YOU can sincerely say that phrase, you’ve mastered the art of asking for help at the proper time, for the right reasons, and from the right people (the 3-step process of WHEN, WHY, WHOM).
My hope for you today is that you’ll examine your own history of asking for help. Were there times you should have asked for help but didn’t? Can you pinpoint successes in your life that occurred because you took the time to ask for help? Can you form the logic in your mind around the benefits of utilizing the 3-step process of asking for help? Has fear of what others will think of you ever prevented you from asking for help? Can you come up with 5 instances where you sought others that had skill sets different from your own and they helped you accomplish a task or reach a goal? If you formed your own personal board of directors for the life you want to live, who would be included on that board?
Data shows that helping others brings us immediate joy. It’s the way our brain works. Have you ever considered that when you don’t ask for help, you’re robbing someone of the potential joy they’d experience by helping you? Data also shows that when we help another person, we have a release of serotonin in our brain which makes us feel good. That’s why being willing to ask for help most often results in a win/win and right now would be a great time for ALL of us to experience more win/wins. Hey…I Believe In YOU! GiddyUp!