Ask for help
Back in high school I was in the top class, although I wasn’t the cream of the crop. I had a very strict teacher who would randomly pick someone to provide pointers for essay questions. I used to pray that he wouldn’t pick me, because my mind would go blank whenever he did. Sometimes I wasn’t so lucky, and when I couldn’t answer he would give me a disapproving and disappointed glare. Out of the corner of my eye, some of my classmates would snigger.
That was just one example in a sea of other similar situations. No wonder I still have nightmares of my high school years.
Those days in that classroom, it was every man for himself. Not wanting to be caught in a terror-stricken situation ever again, I told myself that I couldn’t depend on anyone but myself. “No one is going to help me”.
I’m sure I’m not alone in experiencing those feelings. Coupled with an unhealthy diet of American television and movies, many of us are rooted in Individualism. We believe in the self-made man, the one who accomplishes everything by himself, alone.
A consequence of this, people become afraid of asking for help.
At work, we may not know what to do and clearly would benefit from some help, yet we’re reluctant to ask for it. Instead, we spend hours trying to solve it all by ourselves and eventually suffer in silence. We fear that people would judge us as stupid, weak, needy and incompetent, especially in a competitive work environment - when really, there’s no shame in asking for help when we need it.
Luckily, times seem to have changed. I believe today’s schools teach their students to depend on one another if they want to move ahead in life, to stand on the shoulders of giants and people who have gone ahead of us. As the saying goes, it takes a village to raise a child. We already start to see the results of this communal-minded structure in today’s ‘new normal’, where people are thriving and prospering together in a VUCA (volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous) world.
Here’s some advice for leaders who - like me - are recovering self-made men and women:
Learn to ask for help.
Learn to depend on the expertise and love of others. You might feel like you can do it alone, but people thrive best with a support system behind them.
To receive help, you need to learn to give help.
Help is reciprocal. When you’re willing to help others, they’re willing to help you.
Get yourself a coach/mentor
If you want to accelerate your growth, have someone who can keep you accountable. Coaching would help give you clarity, courage, commitment and completion.
Even as I write this, I still find it hard to ask for help at times. If you have any other tips on how I - and other readers - can get better at asking for help, feel free to share them in the comments below! ●