Asking for Help

Welcome back to Everyday Leader. Shannon and Conrad here. Today we want to talk about asking for help -- specifically, when to do it, what gets in the way, and what becomes possible when we do.

There is a strong cultural pull in Western society to go it alone. To figure it out yourself. To be the individual who produces the excellent result. And we know that going it alone comes at a cost -- but it is often invisible until we are already deep in it.

The shift I keep coming back to is the question itself. Instead of asking "should I ask for help?" -- which is already loaded with all the stories -- ask "what would this be like with a little help?" That question opens something different. It leads with curiosity rather than judgment. My practice is to ask it almost always: what help can I get here? Even for small things.

The assumptions that stop us: it will take longer if I involve someone else. It won't be done the way I would do it. They might have a different approach. And underneath all of those -- the one that is hardest to say out loud -- is that asking for help means I am not good enough. Those stories are worth naming, because once you name them, you can see them for what they are.

And what you cannot see when you go alone is what becomes possible when you do not. When we lean into other people and ask for help, what we are able to create together is almost always more than what we could have imagined on our own. That is the exciting part -- not just the efficiency, but the unexpected emergence.

This is not only a professional challenge. In our personal lives we have also drifted away from asking for help with ordinary things. The neighbor with a cup of sugar. The carpool that does not happen even though it easily could. Borrowing the lawnmower. Asking someone to hold the ladder. We have quietly decided that any hint of dependency on someone else is something to avoid -- and I think that has made us lonelier and less resourced than we need to be.

My signal that it is time to ask for help: when I notice myself ruminating or spinning on the same task -- circling it without moving forward. That is when I ask myself what it would be like to call someone, get into a conversation, get into relationship around this. Something shifts when you bring another person in. Even just saying it out loud to someone else changes your relationship to it.

Spinning, getting stuck, noticing that something you have wanted to do is still not happening -- those are all invitations. The question to try: what would it be like if I got some help here? See what comes up. We all need more help than we are asking for. That is the invitation.

Try it. Let us know what happens. Until next time -- be well.