We all have times where asking for help could have saved us hours of frustration and additional work.
By keeping everything to ourselves the situation may have grown from a small issue, to a major crisis. So how do we prevent this from happening again in the future? And how can we ask for help without looking weak?
The fear that comes from asking for help is rational. We don’t want to look incompetent, ignorant, or lazy. We also don’t want to burden other people with our problems. The problem however, is that sometimes asking for help really is the best thing to do.
I remember when I was first learning to fly a plane. I was flying along with my instructor and we were training for landing at a very busy international airport. I remember being absolutely swamped trying to handle the radios, maps and navigation, working through my checklists, and of course, flying the plane.
My instructor finally had to step in and take control while I regained my composure and was able to catch up to where I needed to be.
On the ground he asked me why I didn’t ask for help? I was a bit stunned. I didn’t even think about that option. I was determined to prove that I could do it all alone.
It was a failure on my part to maximize the resources I had available, and instead of a fun flight into a new airport I decided instead to self-inflict stress, a higher workload, and demonstrate an inability to ask for help.
Leaders Ask For Help
It’s a misconception to believe that asking for help is a sign of weakness. Not only are you slowing progress, causing yourself more stress, and needlessly toiling over an issue, you’re also denying a member of your team, family, or friends from showing you what they’re capable of.
Leaders who fail are the ones who do it by themselves. Leaders who succeed are the ones who allow others to help them. -Simon Sinek
So how can you go about confidently asking for help?
How To Confidently Ask For Help
1. Know your strengths
We can’t all be good at everything, so take the time to really drill down and understand your own strengths and weaknesses. Don’t know where to start, the book Strengths Finder 2.0 was beneficial in helping me determine my strengths and how leveraging would enable me to accomplish more. (My strength results were Maximizer, Activator, Futuristic, Competition, Significance.)
2. Know your limitations
Now make a list of all of your limitations. Limitations are normally easily identified by thinking of the things we really don’t enjoy doing. For me these are anything numbers or accounting related. Rather than attempt to study and learn new ways to keep my books in order, I instead have chosen to hire an excellent accountant who’s saved me countless hours of work and thousands of dollars, enabling me to focus on the areas of my business that I can have the greatest impact on.
3.Change your associations
The next step is to begin associating asking for help with strength, courage, self-awareness, and intelligence.
Not only is trying to bear the weight of the world on your shoulders an ineffective strategy, it also makes you look stubborn, inflexible, and unproductive.
The goal is results. Using all of the tools and resources available to you is normally the single fastest way to accomplish any given task. Asking for help shows that you’re interested in the successful outcome of the task, not your own ego.
Preparation Is Key
If you’ve already tried to handle things yourself, and have also tried to find the answer through reading, watching an instructional video, or searching online, then the time has come to ask for help and you can do so without shame, knowing you’ve exhausted all available options.
You don’t need to spend weeks and months searching for the answer before asking for help either. This is a stall tactic and is just another way to avoid asking for help. All you need is to demonstrate that you’ve made some effort to solve the problem and you won’t look lazy. It will also make the person you ask feel better and more inclined to provide assistance.
Helping others is a great feeling, and when you try to take on everything yourself you deny your employees, team, family, or friends the chance to show what they’re good at.
We don’t need to be good at everything, but we should definitely try to get better at asking for help.
