To realize our big, bold visions, we need support. Asking for help can offer us so much – from bringing ease to our daily rhythms and routines to getting resources in crisis to deepening our connection to our community. What is your relationship to asking others to help you out? What are the mindsets and habits at play for you? We explore these questions and more as we build up our muscle memory on how to ask for help.
Ideas Shared
Reflection Questions
- Imagine the following scenarios noting how you feel in each one:
- You find yourself in a situation where you must ask for help unpredictably and from someone you’ve never asked before. How doe that feel?
- You regularly rely on a close friend or family member to help you on a key part of your daily routine. How does that feel? Would it be more or less easy to ask that same support person for something else?
- You are absolutely overwhelmed – never ending to do list, busy season at work, family member/s needing extra attention. What’s your impulse? Does it matter if you know what kind of help you need or if you are unsure of what would help?
2. When you ask for help, do you feel that you need to reciprocate/have an even trade?
3. Consider how you spend your time over the course of the week. What do you do that you do not have to do? What keeps you doing these things? How comfortable are you with delegating tasks that you CAN do but that you do not HAVE to do?
4. What is the experience like for you to be asked to help someone else?
Ways to Practice Asking for Help
- Be clear and specific about the help you need – when you can.
- When you don’t know what will help, seek perspective from a trusted resource.
- Practice asking for something where the answer will be NO.
- Cozy up to the the underlying mindsets and habits that show up when you need help from others.