So you’re in over your head on a project or problem and time’s a-wasting, but you refuse to ask for help… either because it would take too much time to bring someone else up to speed, or because you’re too embarrassed about having let it go for so long, or because, just because. Sound familiar? (It certainly does to me.)
For many of us, asking for help is really, really hard. There’s something that feels weirdly shameful about it, especially when you’re trying to be an independent person in a culture that prizes independence. A recent NY Times article addresses this human dilemma, posing the question, “Why Is Asking for Help So Difficult?” The quick answer the article offers is this:
There are many reasons people fear requesting assistance, primary among them not wanting to seem weak, needy or incompetent … The danger, however, is that stalling can let the situation grow from a problem into a crisis.
Apparently, even when we recognize a need for help we’re pretty lousy at asking for it: “We solicit pity when we want assistance. We ask the wrong person. We might have felt humiliated doing it in the past, so we fear doing it in the future.” Sometimes a plan to request assistance gets twisted into coercion via guilt or emotional blackmail. It’s a quagmire of our own devising. (Ah, my favorite kind!)
Author and “coach” Nora Klaver, whose book, MayDay! Asking for Help in Times of Need, comes out this week, says most people have simply never been taught how to ask for help. Here’s her cheatsheet:
- Be straightforward. Ask in specific terms, but do not micromanage.
- Rely less on the obvious people. When seeking a doctor, for example, do not just ask your friends, but go to a nearby gym and ask who the athletes see.
- Bypass phone calls or e-mail messages if at all possible and make your request in person and in private.
- Pick up on cues — is that an enthusiastic or a reluctant yes?
- Say thanks when the agreement is struck, when the need has been met and when you next see the person who helped you.
Is it me, or are these tips on asking for help not all that helpful? Granted, I haven’t read the book, and it’s hard to know what meaningful advice may have been left on the editing room floor at the Times. But while these nuggets are sensible, they don’t seem to get at the central psychological problem of asking for help: how it has the potentional to upset the balance of power in a relationship. Indebtedness is a state nobody wants to live in, so how do you ask for help and still feel like you’re in an equal partnership? (On the flipside, how do you provide help without feeling like you are owed?) Anybody got any help on this one?
A good book on this whole thing, referenced earlier this year in the NY Times, is an older title by Bornstein & Languuirand called “Healthy Dependency.” It paints an eerily precise and knowing portrait of “dysfunctional detachment” and the sad kinds of relationships that grow in that weakened soil (fearful and insecure at one end, or defensive and closed off on the other). The gyst of it for me is that the longer and more deeply you hide your needs from others, the more unknowable and un-fixable you become to yourself. Let others see you, and you’ll meet yourself anew.
It’s not just you…the tips aren’t helpful.
They’ve got the dependency issue backwards. I’ve seen several movies where someone from a “primitive” culture saved the life of a Westerner, and was therefafter obligated to protect that person’s life until the favor was repaid. The interesting thing in there, and it’s so counter-intuitive that you might need to read that again, is that it is *the person who did the saving* who bears the obligation.
I don’t know all the psychology behind it, but I’ve seen it said a few different ways: If you want someone to feel indebted to you, let them do you a favor.
You’re right – the tips seem more like “how to get help” than “how to ask”. To answer your questions about the ‘balance of power’ I would suggest:
* To prevent feeling indebted:
1. Provide ‘payment’ in some way. Buy the person a soda, take them to dinner, or whatever you feel is roughly equivalent to their inconvenience. If you got advice, a heartfelt “thanks” should be enough. If they helped you with a home improvement project, a case of beer is customary.
2. Offer payment upfront, so there’s no confusion. (I’ll give you this candy bar if you’ll show me how to remove the redeye on this photo.)
3. Be someone who is helpful to others (in whatever ways you can help), so you’ll feel entitled to receive help.
* To prevent feeling owed/entitled:
1. Change your frame of mind. Tell yourself you are being honored by being asked to help, because you’re obviously trusted to be helpful. Tell yourself that you “level up” every time you do help.
2. State your payment needs upfront, and ask for payment when work is completed. (OK, I’ll show you how to change your oil, but it’ll cost you a jar of that awesome salsa your wife makes. Deal?)
3. Pay it forward. Consider that you’re helping others because you yourself have been helped. You don’t need to receive payment.
4. Don’t be a doormat. If someone is always asking for your help and never saying thanks or paying you back, it is OK to say no.
5. Redirect. If you’d be really put out by helping, help by pointing out someone else who can.
Interesting.. I thinnk the politics of help is a bigger issue than the article goes in to.
A few links:
http://www.normemma.com/arhellbe.htm
http://spinningtumor.blogspot.com/2007/05/some-rambly-thoughts-on-helpy.html
Good morning!
I read your comments with great interest because McGraw Hill released my new book this February called Help Is Not Four-Letter Word: Why Doing It All Is Doing You In where I name a self-defeating behavior that I think is near epidemic in our country. I call it The Self-Sufficiency Syndrome and the person a Self-Sufficient. Many of us can’t ask for help, do everything all by ourselves, can’t delegate cause no one else will do it as well as we can, help others all the time but can’t ask to have the favor returned and we’re headed for burnout!!
I’m not a psychologist-I’m someone this happened to and I’m getting the word out there as much as I can.
There are a couple of major reasons we have trouble asking for help.
1. It’s a cultural value that asking for help is a weakness. If you grew up with parents who believed this, then it takes a personal decision to break out of it.
2. Some of us grew up in chaotic situations where fear reigned so we ran from dependency as fast as we could and swore we’d never depend on anyone else again and since self-sufficiency is so respected in our culture – here we are!
I’m sure there are hundreds of other reasons we’ve gone to an extreme lifestyle but those are two of the “biggies”.
How can we break out of it? Become aware that this self-defeating behavior(Self-Sufficiency Syndrome) exists. Awareness is huge!
Then ask yourself if you’re focusing more on accomplishments than you are on relationships? Maybe doing something in an average way may help you reach out and involve someone who may not do it as well as you can.
And I love the earlier comment about “feeding” the exchange or interdependence by asking first. I’ll never forget when one of my best friends said, “when are you going to give me the dignity of helping you?”
Hope you all will give Help Is Not a “look-see” and please let me know what you think.
Peggy Collins
author of Help Is Not a Four-Letter Word: Why Doing It All Is Doing You In
http://www.helpisnotafourletterword.com
I thought Maria Helm’s comment was right on. Very good and straight forward. Not to mention, I apply a few of those in my life and all works out for the better.
Ahem, as the author of Mayday! Asking for Help in Times of Need I feel compelled to respond to the original posting.
First, do not believe for a second that the Times article is representative of the book. I do delve, quite deeply in fact, into the historical AND psychological reasons why we do not ask for help. Mayday! identifies three categories of fear that prohibit us physically and mentally from asking for what we need. These are the fear of shame (looking stupid, weak, etc.), the fear of surrender (having to pay a price or having to relinquish control) and the fear of separation (losing a relationship over the request for help.)These are the fears that lead to our compulsion to remain self-sufficient.
Second, as all of us have difficulty asking for help in at least one domain of life, I chose not to assign labels. They are counterproductive and they oversimplify a behavior that has taken root over a lifetime.
Third, the book does address specifically a seven step process – not covered in the Times article! I recommend replacing the fear with different emotional states that actually affect us physically and mentally – ultimately grounding us as we make our requests for help.
Please, please don’t judge a book by simply reading a newspaper article. If you want concrete, actionable tips for how to ask for help, read Mayday! I’ve already heard from hundreds of people who say this book has changed their lives.
Check out the review on Amazon from Publisher’s Weekly. It’s pretty accurate.
If you’d like to learn more, check out maydaythebook.com