“I hate asking for help” – so many people tell me this whether it’s clients or friends, it seems that the concept of asking for help is still something people struggle to get their heads around.
Asking for help isn’t failing.
When I’ve talked with clients about this, they talk about how it makes them feel “having” to ask others to help them out, a feeling of somehow failing or falling short. Things have to get really bad for them to reach out to someone else for support. Why do we wait for that to happen?
How would it be if we were to speak up BEFORE things got really difficult? What about asking for just a little bit of help?
I think that sometimes we associate “getting help” with large issues that we are struggling with, the things that have knocked us for six, so we then look to others for some support. Maybe it’s time to change that and look at ways others could help us before we hit the crunch point?
Little bits of help.
Here are some ideas that might work for you, things that you could practice asking for help with just to ease the load.
- Talking – sometimes we don’t need/want physical help, being able to say what’s bothering us out loud can help. Explain to a friend what you need, that you don’t need the issue resolving but just need to offload and let them listen.
- Outsourcing – this can have a cost attached to it but if you are really feeling up against it, outsourcing tasks that take energy can help even if it’s a one off.
- Delegating – not always easy but if there are tasks that others could do for you either at work OR at home, ask. If you don’t ask, they won’t know to help.
- Don’t refuse help – if someone offers to help, accept graciously – it can be a cup of tea, putting the bins out (oh the glamour) picking up a pint of milk at the shops, little things that are possibly easier to accept than the BIG stuff but can still help.
If we can change our mindset to asking for help before we reach crisis point, we not only save ourselves a whole load of stress and anxiety, but we enable others to be part of our lives in a way that can help and satisfy them too. Life feels a lot less lonely when we all have each other’s backs!
