The Power of Asking for Help

Be vulnerable, it’s good for you.

Vulnerability speeds up growth and improves chances of success. Specifically, the power of asking for help.

I repeat the same cycle. Decide I want to do something. Attempt it, then get stuck. I fester in my inability, get frustrated, and end up not getting very far. This leads to procrastination and eventually not accomplishing what I intended.

I realized I see the most success when I proactively and unabashedly asked for help. So I tried that tactic again this week.

I reached out to someone capable when I got stuck, articulated the issue while it was still fresh on my mind, and moved on to the next step I could complete on my own. The result? I moved so much faster than I would have otherwise and even got some kind of serendipity to add wind to my sails.

Asking for help feels uncomfortable because we are publicly acknowledging a deficiency.

This isn’t a healthy way to look at it, however. Instead, think about it as crowdsourcing your desired outcome. Asking who could help you accomplish the task or who could help you learn the skill faster is a secret cheat code. It’s leveraging other people’s knowledge to arbitrage learning and speeds up the process from beginner to proficient.

Realize you don’t need to be an expert.

It’s hard to put your ego in check. Once I realized I didn’t need to be an expert in everything, it relieved a lot of stress. One of my goals this year is to dramatically increase my income. Now that I’ve taken this on, I realize I don’t know how to do everything that I want to do. And that’s okay. I don’t need to know how to do every little nuance, instead, my time is best spent finding who can help me get there.

I’m building my muscle of asking for help in areas where I need it.