I have no problem when connections ask me for help. I enjoy helping people and am generally happy to help others. It’s a big part of leadership. This is something I recognise and embrace when I have formal roles. Humility is an essential trait in good leaders – realising that just because you’re the leader you don’t know it all and that it’s important to surround yourself with those who have different skillsets to your own in order to achieve objectives together. Being able to say, “I don’t know” and “Can you help?” is absolutely crucial. Humility is the trait I’ve seen time and time again have a huge impact and be celebrated in leaders I admire.
Yet I often struggle with asking for help for myself personally. In leadership roles, I’m generally not doing it just for me – there was a bigger purpose and impact on others. But recently, when I’ve sometimes been struggling with my own direction, I’ve found it much harder.
I chose to break from my property career, as I wanted to do something which had a bigger meaning and purpose for me personally. I know I often hesitate over putting myself out there and asking other people for something though. Probably linked to the subjects in some of my previous blogs on confidence and personality types. It’s definitely not my natural skillset. I admire those people I know who do these things so naturally, warmly and confidently that you don’t even notice they’re doing it.
The point of making this career change was to develop new skills and challenge myself. Part of this is inevitably thinking about things differently. Recently a few friends have asked me for help with various projects or just wanting to talk through ideas. I really enjoyed helping them. I probably got just as much out of those conversations in terms of inspiration, energy and ideas as they did. Why wouldn’t this be the same if I ask for help – the person helping me may just as easily get something positive out of it as well.
There are some close connections I’ve turned to for advice over the past few months and they’ve been absolutely brilliant with their support, spurring me on when I was wavering in my resolve. I have undoubtedly held back from asking some others for help though. I don’t know what I’m afraid of. The worst thing someone could say is no after all. So if I do ask you for help now…no obligation at all, feel free to (kindly) say no, but likewise let me know if I can help you.
Photo by Toa Heftiba on Unsplash
