No matter who says otherwise, we have all been in a situation where we have been afraid to ask for help because it may ‘promote a sense of weakness’. In truth, it happens every single day. Whether it is in a career or in regards to a personal matter, every day there will be someone who shies away from asking for help. This leads to one question and one question only – why?
As children and throughout childhood, we continually ask questions and see if anyone can help when we are stuck with something but where does this go in adulthood? Why do we all of a suddenly decide to ‘tough it out’ and see if we can do it alone? We answered this question very early on in saying that people believe that it makes them weak but this isn’t the case. By opening up and saying ‘I need help’, we are recognizing something that we cannot do alone and are looking to recruit the skills required from someone else. How can this be a weakness?
If you go through life choosing not to ask for help, you are never going to achieve your goals because it will be like reaching a dead end. As soon as you need help, you will turn around and start walking in a different direction until you need help again but this is a crazy way to live. If you want something badly enough, there may be times in your life that you need help but this doesn’t mean that you are too weak to handle everything. In fact, it just means that you have recognized a hurdle and you could use another set of hands to help pull you over it. If you choose to go it alone and not get help, this is weakness because you aren’t recognizing your boundaries which leads to stress and poor health.
As soon as you realize that you become stronger when you ask for help, you will have all the tools necessary to take on the world. At work, when you are struggling with a particular task, if you don’t ask for help then you will never get it right and you can’t improve. In your personal life, if you don’t ask for help when you need it then you will crumble under the pressure and slip backwards. Consider someone you look up to who are at the top of their field, do you think that they got to the top by handling everything themselves? No, you can be sure that they had some struggles along the way both personally and professionally but they realized when they needed a helping hand.
Ultimately, if you look around you right now and notice all your friends/family/colleagues, you will find a number of people who have uttered the words ‘let me know if there is anything I can do to help’. Remember, most of them mean these words so it is ok to ask them every now and you can do the same in return for them in the future. Life can be hard but it doesn’t have to be, don’t be afraid to ask for help and Live Life Fully.
