Day 4–100 Days To Becoming An Online Course Instructor

How to ask for what you need, even when you feel uncomfortable in doing so

Day 4.

I have been curious about whether I am moving fast enough. I finally allowed myself to ask this question of myself today.

I mostly feel on track. However, I am feeling a little anxious about contacting the next five people on my list. Because of that, I have been delaying getting in touch with these people.

Delaying the next group of interviews does not support me in making progress. I asked myself why I was struggling with asking for interviews, and a myriad of stories popped up:

The people on my list are busy, I don’t want to add to their workload
I haven’t spoken to some of these people for a while. I feel as though I am using them.
What if I have incorrectly assumed that they are part of my target audience?
What if they think my idea is rubbish?
What if they don’t want to talk to me?
Feel free to insert heaps of other non-helpful thoughts here, because I most likely had them.

And so Day 4 has been an exploration of “asking for help” (or “making a request”).

Knowledge

Asking for help is often the one simple act standing between us and success. But, the thought of actually doing so can be terrifying for so many of us.

— Wayne Baker in “All You Have To Do Is Ask”

Humans are not always great at asking for help. Well, at least this human isn’t. When I think of taking action in the world, the idea of asking for help isn’t usually an obvious part of that.

Yet, it can open so many possibilities.

I can think of two main types of scenarios where asking for help might be useful:

When we are complaining about something. In this case, we tend to become caught up in the complaint and forget about what we can do to remove the complaining. As an example, of this, my daughter was recently complaining quite frequently that her pencil case was too small. After a while of this, we said, “What requests could you make that would help you to sort this out?” She came up with various possibilities: Asking her sister whether she had a spare pencil case, asking whether she could swap her pencil case for mine, and asking whether we could buy her a new pencil case were a few.
When something is missing that we know we need help to make possible. For example, I won’t know what my target audience wants from my online course if I don’t ask people to assist by providing their thoughts.

It isn’t always easy for us to ask for help. As I said, I struggle with even remembering that it is a valid option. However, here’s the thing: My research for my course is not going to move forward if I don’t ask for assistance from my target audience.

For that reason alone, knowing how to make those requests is going to be essential.

Not asking for help is one of the most self-limiting, self-constraining, even self-destructive decisions we can make. — Wayne Baker in “All You Have To Do Is Ask”

What I Have Learned

There are four guidelines that I like to remind myself of when I am struggling to ask for help:

It is my responsibility to ask for help when I want it and to be clear about what it is that I want.
It is the other person’s responsibility to either accept or decline the request.
If someone declines our request for help, it doesn’t mean that we did the wrong thing in asking. It says nothing about us and everything about where the other person is at. And that is perfectly ok — when we ask, we know that the person can say yes or they can say no. Both are valid options. If they say no, it simply means that they said no.
If it helps, we can always acknowledge to the other person that we know they are busy, and give them the option of saying no. What they choose to do with that is their choice.

The question remains as to why we have difficulty in asking for help. For me, this comes back to our way of being. I brought out my trusty way of being check-in questions to help me out:

What am I saying to myself about asking for help?
What emotions am I experiencing about asking for help? Can I name them?
How is this all feeling in my body?

These questions always bring me an ah-ha moment. In this case, I could see that I was operating from fear and anxiety. I was worried that people wouldn’t like my idea and that I would look silly. I was also worried that this would all get too hard and I would give up. Again.

The thing is that fear and anxiety will probably lead me down a path of not succeeding at this goal because they result in me being too self-focused and self-protective. Although feat and anxiety can be helpful, they are not going to be helpful for me right now.

And so I decided once again to inject curiosity into my way of being. My self-chatter has become “I wonder what will come of this next group of contacts?”

Something else that occurred to me is that if my work doesn’t resonate with others, that’s not a bad thing. I am having the interviews to find out what does and does not resonate. There is no point in writing a course that doesn’t resonate with anyone. With this piece of learning, my fear of my program not resonating with others could become gratitude at having contacts in my target audience who felt safe being honest with me.

So, Day 4 and I have learned:

When I make a request, there are some things that I am responsible for and some things that the other party is responsible for.
When I make a request, it is useful to be aware of the way of being from which it would be useful for me to make the request.
If I am interviewing people, some will want an approach similar to what I have been imagining. Others won’t. This is all information that provides me with amazing insights and opportunities for my course. For this, I am grateful.

Progress

On Day 4, I have:

Held one in-person interview
Held one interview via email
Made note of the feedback from the interviews
Brought myself back from the brink of giving up on my remaining interviews

Tomorrow, I would like to schedule some interviews that have been agreed to and are not currently scheduled. I would also like to contact the next seven people on my list. I would feel comfortable if the remaining interviews are all pencilled in by Wed 10 February 2021.

4/4/100 (Days on track / Days gone / 100) On track.

References

Baker, W., 2020. All you have to do is ask: how to master the most important skill for success. New York: Currency.

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