I don’t know how to ask for help
A common theme in my coaching sessions is this: “I don’t know how to ask for help.”
Do you relate?
You know that you aren’t expected to know how to do everything, but your brain still tells you that you should know how to do everything.
It always seems to be that the skill that makes us a ‘legitimate adult’ is the skill we don’t possess.
You are in good company if you feel this way. I struggle with it too.
It’s easy to feel shame and embarrassment over the things we don’t know how to do or struggle to do. Then we dismiss the things we ‘do’ know how to do. Everyone raves about your baking but you feel like a failure because you rarely remember to pay your electric bill on time. Maybe you delegate tasks effectively at work but beat yourself up because you hate writing reports. People seek you out for advice and support but you berate yourself for the piles of laundry and dishes.
Flip the script
What would happen if you flipped the script on yourself?
a perceived inability is actually an invitation to create a deeper sense of community
Last week my client identified that a perceived inability is actually an invitation to create a deeper sense of community. The act of asking for help creates a sense of safety, trust, vulnerability and community with another person. Asking for help is the key that my client needed in to have the life they were longing for.
What if your ‘inability’ is actually an invitation from you to another person?
I know, I know… My brain is protesting too. It’s telling me that I don’t want people to see my mess, I don’t want them to know how much I struggle. I worry about being judged.
Let’s give our brains a chance to calm down and then come back to this question. What if?
What if asking for help is exactly what the confidence boost your friend has been longing for?
I asked for help
I wasn’t planning on sharing this story on the blog but what my friend said confirmed that I needed to get this message out. You see, I’ve admired my friend’s assertiveness for a long time. It’s a skill I’ve been working on so I asked if we could go for a walk so she could teach me how to be more assertive.
It was an eye-opening conversation, but not for the reasons I originally expected.
During that walk, in addition to teaching me about assertiveness, my friend shared about the vital necessity of asking for and receiving help. She told me that my asking for her help was a gift to her. It honored her to know that I admired this trait in her and wanted her help. We were both equally grateful to get to enjoy the outdoors while we talked. Even though I was the one receiving her help, we were both benefiting from our time together.
God was confirming to me, in that conversation, that I need to ask for help more often. It’s possible you need to hear this message too. I know all the excuses. I use them too. Your brain will likely come up with dramatic reasons why you shouldn’t ask for help. It’s just doing what it thinks will keep you safe from harm. Maybe you’ve been burned in the past and your brain is telling you that help = danger.
It’s time to grab on to the hope that there is an abundance of good in the world and that there are people out there who are genuinely willing to help. As Christians, we must never lose hope. When we close ourselves off to help because of a painful past, then we are closing ourselves off to hope and God’s ability to transform us.
Let me repeat that: closing yourself off to help closes you off from becoming who you’re meant to be.
Vulnerability is one of the scariest acts we humans engage in. It’s vulnerable to ask for help. Yet it’s in our vulnerability that we get to encounter Jesus in another person and in ourselves. He dwells in our inmost beings, and the more walls we put up the harder it is to see Him in ourselves and others. It’s time to start removing those walls and letting people in. You might be delighted by what you discover when you do.
Today’s challenge: Ask 1 person for help today and then share it with me!
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If you’d like coaching around this topic so that you can start asking for help more often, then make sure to schedule a consultation with me. This is exactly the type of thing I help my clients with.
