Seven Tips For Feeling Empowered To Ask For Help Via Courageous Conversations
Many days, we feel overwhelmed by the work staring us in the face. Factor in last minute needs or requests from those we genuinely care about, and we begin to feel like we'll never get ahead! With so many people around us, we feel alone in our struggle to get everything done. How can we shift our mindset to one of asking for help when we need it? By practicing Courageous Conversations.
What Are Courageous Conversations?
Because asking for help is hard, we call it a Courageous Conversation. Even though we have witnessed countless examples of people helping others over the past year, we still have not shifted our mindset about asking for help. This is the case, especially at work. In a recent study by Civic Science, 59% of the respondents indicated that they don’t ask for help in the workplace. Why do we find it so difficult to ask for help? The simplest explanation is that our brains jump in to save us from social risk.
We tend to believe, whether we are conscious of it or not, that asking for help or accepting help is somehow negative. Neuroscience explains this quite well. According to our misguided perceptions, asking for help can trigger fear, feelings of weakness, uncertainty, a threat to our autonomy and can conjure up the risk of rejection. These alarming social risks manifest so high within our brains that we can actually mistake them as situations of danger or experience physical pain due to our mental processing of it all.
When we examine this phenomenon under a magnifying glass, it seems silly to avoid asking for help because of our brain’s worst case scenario projection. Instead, let’s think bigger about asking for and accepting help. We have the opportunity to perform a “mindset reset” and change the course of our success. Imagine if we believed that asking for help was a sign of strength and courage. In fact, the same Civic Science study found that feeling comfortable asking for help has a direct positive correlation with job happiness. And what if we believed that those we reach out to consider it an honor that we asked them for help? Research has validated this exact point - asking someone else for help and allowing them the opportunity to contribute increases their well-being, pride and self-motivation.
Seven Tips To Ask For Help Using Courageous Conversations
If asking for help is a good thing, how do we make it a more natural part of our culture? Here are seven tips to support us in using Courageous Conversations to ask for help:
Recognize when you need help - Advance self-awareness and self-compassion in order to recognize when it is time to ask for help. Don’t go it alone, vulnerability is powerful and we’ve all needed help at one time or another. By asking for help early, we minimize our struggle (mentally and physically) and the extent to which we need help from another.
See it as a sign of strength and collaboration - We already know it takes courage to ask for help and the strongest people ask for help. Remember that we were designed to take care of each other and it is human nature to want to help others. Research shows positive emotions are higher when someone responds to a request for help, even more than when they offer to help proactively. If we can change our mindset to believe that asking for help is an opportunity for better collaboration, we’ll forge stronger connections to those around us. When we work together, outcomes are better than what we could achieve alone.
Don't apologize - Apologizing for our request for help actually minimizes the opportunity for the other person to do the right thing (and feel great about it!). Apologies suggest that we are doing something wrong, which we are not.
Make it personal, not transactional - Tone can be lost through email or text. Face to face requests are 34x more successful at rallying the help we need and getting our sincerity across. Keep in mind that we should also avoid emphasizing reciprocity. People tend to prefer a thank you instead of the expectation of another favor. It better honors the person helping us.
Show appreciation - Allow gratitude to be personal as well. Make sure the person helping sees the benefit of their good deed for the recipient on a personal level and for the overall success of the task at hand. Ask privately, yet praise publicly.
Make it a norm and model it - Asking for help promotes a culture of helpfulness that leads to better organizational well-being and business outcomes. One way we can integrate asking for help into our work culture is by designating a regular time during our team huddles as an “asking for help” session. Here, the stage is set to ask for and offer help.
Give help to get help - Once we become the type of person who jumps at the chance to help others, we also become the type of person who has an easier time asking for help. Model these practices for others to get them on board too.
As Simon Sinek often relates, “a team is a group of people who take care of each other.” By asking for, accepting and giving help with Courageous Conversations, we become beings who naturally help to take care of each other. Imagine the positive change we could ignite simply by changing our mindset around asking for help.
UpSpiral Leadership® offers learning journeys and coaching that empower leaders to have their own Courageous Conversations.
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