Four Reasons We Fail to Ask for Help, and How to Get Over Them
If you’re old enough to read this newsletter, you probably remember the days when navigating to a new destination meant pulling out a giant atlas from under the car’s passenger seat. To those born in the GPS generation, it’s unfathomable to imagine that you’d have to look up the name of a new city in the index of a giant book, find it on a specific page in the map, and then figure out your own route using some combination of navigation skills and luck.
It’s not so hard to navigate from city to city using written directions and a paper map. But the last mile is where the luck was needed. Instructions included things like “turn left at the Taco Bell,” or “about three miles after the Taco Bell, there’s a weird tree with a service road that juts off to the right, take it, but zig when the road zags.”
Inevitably, you couldn’t find that Taco Bell or you weren’t really watching the mileage and maybe you’ve driven three miles, but possibly it was four already?
So here’s my question: when that was the circumstance, would you rather be riding with the person who would stop at the gas station to ask, or the person who refused to ask for help?
When navigating, I’m clearly in Team Ask. But the rest of the time, I struggle to ask for help.
After a few incidents lately when I’ve avoided asking for help until the last minute, or when I’ve watched a client do the same, I started to dissect why we do this—why we fail to ask for help, when a request for help is really one of the most important questions we can ask. I’ve found four clear reasons.
Four reasons we fail to ask for help
#1: I don’t want to appear incompetent. Sometimes, we don’t ask for help because we want to look like we have our stuff together. Who’s panicked? I’m not panicking. (Paddles furiously under the surface.)
Why this is bogus: Research shows that when you ask for help, you’re actually seen as more competent, not less. You’re worried that asking for help might hurt your pride, but actually it might help your reputation.
#2: It’s my responsibility to do this on my own. Those of us who have a high sense of duty or obligation can feel like a task is ours to own individually. Sharing it feels like shirking responsibility, and that’s anathema to who we are.
#3: I don’t want to burden someone else. Reason 3 is closely related to Reason 2—we don’t want to overload others, so we’ll pile the tasks on ourselves instead. Many of my coaching clients want to remove day-to-day tasks off their plates so they can be more strategic, or know they should be better at delegating, but their fear of over-burdening a team member is so strong that they never ask what is possible.
Why 2 and 3 are bogus: Humans are social creatures; we’re meant to do things together. When someone loves you, they want to help. And when someone works with you, they assume that tasks will be shared. Plus, when you fail to give new tasks to your team members, you’re failing to develop them. (Relatedly, we sometimes fail to ask for help from others because it seems easier to do it on our own—but that’s bogus too, for the same reasons.)
#4: I shouldn’t have to ask, you should just know. I wish I didn’t have to confess to this one, but honestly—it’s one of the big reasons I don’t ask for help. I think my kids should just realize that the dishwasher needs to be unloaded. I think my husband should just know that having a dinner party means cleaning the house top to bottom, even the upstairs bathroom no one is ever going to use. I shouldn’t have to ask for their help, right?
Wrong. Of course.
Why this is bogus: You don’t live or work with mind readers. If something matters to you, it’s up to you to name it and ask for what you need.
I started this newsletter with a story about a paper atlas. Now, let me remind you of the myth of Atlas: he was a Greek Titan who, as punishment for taking the wrong side in a fight, was condemned to hold up the sky.
Believing you have to hold up your corner of the world on your own is a punishment, not something to be proud of. Don’t be Atlas—ask for help when you need it. You’ll be seen as more competent for doing it, and it will strengthen relationships along the way.
Photo by Siddhant Kumar on Unsplash
