Do you shy away from speaking up when there’s something you desperately need? Do you avoid asking for help and instead exhaust every other possibility first? Do you feel bad when you ask people for help?
It’s not uncommon to feel that asking others for help is selfish. It’s a huge stumbling block for many of my entrepreneurial clients. Let me tell you exactly what I tell them: it is not selfish to ask for what you need; in fact, it’s the one of the keys to your success.
Let’s talk about what happens when you don’t ask for help.
By trying to do it all yourself, you end up pushing yourself into overwhelm, and leaving yourself feeling frustrated and stressed. To make matters worse, you find yourself feeling resentful of the people around you who likely have no idea that you even need help. Further down the path you become an expert, closet martyr building a righteous resume of things you can do alone.
Enough with the ‘I don’t need help!” crap. You only serve to isolate yourself and have no one around to ask when you really do need support. Life is meant to be lived in rich relationship with others. That means helping them AND letting them help you when you need it, and even when you think you don’t! People love to help and relationships are more meaningful when the vulnerability to ask for that help is welcome and reciprocated.
3 Signs You Need to Ask for Help:
Guilt
Feeling guilty because you are supposed to be doing something that you aren’t doing is a sign that something is wrong. When you start feeling those pangs of guilt, stop and ask yourself what it is you are placing as a priority and why.
Often it’s simply a matter of giving yourself permission to let that particular task go or handing it off to someone else so you can focus on what needs doing in the business, for your family, or even for yourself.
For example, if you aren’t feeling well and you need to lie down, set your timer for 30-60min and take a rest. Reassess how you feel after that time and reprioritize your day. Not taking care of yourself because you feel guilty may have you out of action much longer than you wanted!
Resentment
Feeling resentful or angry because something should be happening that is not is a sign of unmet expectations, and a big red flag. Whether these expectations are realistic or not, you need to address the underlying feelings.
Your choices are either to a) make new agreements with the people around you or b) rethink your expectations (I highly recommend you start here!!). It may be as simple as asking the kids to pitch in a little more, having that frank discussion with your clients about how the relationship is going to work, or as a big as renegotiating your work load with your colleagues or boss.
Stress
Feeling stressed and overwhelmed is an indication that your expectations and your reality are out of alignment. Holding that stress in is how you invalidate your own worth and shutdown your emotions, which in turn, makes you feel more guilt and resentment. Those emotions have a way of manifesting physically in some less than ideal ways over time.
Make a list of everything that is causing you stress in your business and in your personal life. Then determine where the people around you can help or where you need to rethink your expectations (specifically your timelines and workload) of yourself and others.
Don’t let pride be your pitfall. Asking for help isn’t weak!
Not asking for help is a sign that you don’t feel like what you are doing is valuable, or worse, that you yourself are not valuable. You need to let yourself off the hook and realize that you aren’t superhuman and you can’t do it all yourself. Well, you can kill yourself trying and wring every drop of fun out of your life, but I don’t recommend it.
Asking for support in achieving your dreams is like saying yes to your own worth, and better, more collaborative relationships. Believe me when I say that you are worth more than you know and people would love an opportunity to help you as long as it feels like an invitation from you.
Say yes to your awesome by asking for the support you need to succeed! Contact me NOW to set up your FREE consultation!