How to Ask for Help Without Feeling Awkward or Weak | Ep. 84

Asking for help can feel awkward, but it doesn’t have to. In this episode, we dive into the psychology and communication strategies that make asking for help easier and more effective. Whether you’re reaching out to a friend, coworker, or someone you admire, these tips will help you overcome the fear of being a burden and get the support you need.

Transcript

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You are about to listen to a podcast episode that I've wanted to record for such a long time.

And you know what?

I actually did start recording it now that I think about it.

And I was near the end, the last two minutes, when all of a sudden, my neighborhood went dark.

The electricity went out in our home.

I looked out the window, not a porch light, no lights to be seen, not even a mouse.

And it definitely wasn't Christmas Eve.

Santa Claus was not out and about.

There was just a power outage.

And all of the footage that I had did not get saved.

So not only did my camera go out, or my podcast recorder go down, but also my morale went out the window.

But I am back, and better before, to answer a question that I believe limits many of us from living bigger lives and being in better relationships.

And that is, why is it so dang hard to ask for help?

And if this is your first time listening to this podcast, welcome to the Talk to People Podcast.

My name is Chris Miller, and the purpose of this show is for you to live a better social life, because I believe one thing, I believe many things, but one of the biggest things I believe is that life is better when you talk to people.

And if we prioritize the people in our lives with in-person connection, we are going to live bigger, better, and bolder lives.

So, I hope you enjoy this episode, and I'm going to start with a confession.

Is the priest here?

Are we in the confessional booth?

This looks a lot like my home studio, but okay, we'll call this the confessional booth, and maybe a little role play.

Could you be the priest, because I'm going to start with a confession.

Here we go.

Confession time.

Sometimes I pretend like I have it all together when I definitely don't, because I don't like asking for help.

And I think many of us would be in that same camp.

A lot of you agree with me.

We don't like asking for help because we don't want to be vulnerable just for a short amount of time to let other people know we don't have it all together.

And this is a major issue.

It's why I'm making this video, because as humans, our number one strength, our competitive edge, we're not the biggest, we're not the fastest, we're the strong, we're not the biggest, the fastest or the strongest.

We're the best at working together.

We're the best at sharing our thoughts, at making meaning with conversation, at collaborating, communicating and creating.

All of the greatness, all of the beauty that exists in this world, it's because our ability to work together.

So whenever we can't ask for help because we're too scared, or we don't know how, that's a major issue.

So let's talk about what makes it so hard to ask for help.

I want you to know that asking for help is actually a social skill that we can work on and get better at.

And also some thoughts I have to help you ask for help.

A little framework that you can use.

Hopefully you think of it, but if not, you can always come back to this video.

My name's Chris.

I make videos to help people live more social lives.

And I think asking for help is a really important social skill.

But why is it so hard?

Here's a few of my guesses.

Number one, asking for help inherently requires us to be vulnerable, which means we have to take a piece of our armor off.

And when we do that, that means we're sensitive.

That means we are open to whatever the world brings us.

It could be immense pain, but it could also be connection, the thing that we need the most, social connection.

I think when we're vulnerable, we're leading it up to the world, and that's very hard, but we have to be vulnerable.

I'm sure you've watched all of the rom-com movies.

The only way to know you're able to love is to let yourself be heartbroken, right?

That's a little much, but still, same rule applies.

When we're working with people, we need to be vulnerable when we're asking for help.

Number two, I think, is similar to that, but we're no longer in control when we're asking for help.

We can control who we ask, we can control how we ask, we can control when we ask what we ask for, but we can't control their response.

And I think that moment, when we're waiting for them to respond, that uncertainty, it can produce a lot of anxiety.

And many of us don't like that.

We don't like that feeling that we're not in control.

So we limit ourselves.

We limit the lives we live.

We don't take big risks because we're scared that we're gonna have to ask for help.

I've been there, and I don't think it's a good life to live.

I think truthfully, we should be taking big risks and asking for help often.

So I hope this video helps that.

Number three, I think many of us try and keep score, and we don't wanna be in debt to somebody.

We don't wanna feel like we owe somebody something.

So we go around and we try and live life like we're giving things away.

So if anybody owes anything to anybody, it's people owning us stuff.

Again, I think we're selling ourselves short.

All of the studies that just like giving is a good deed.

All of the studies show when people help others out, we're actually, we get good feelings when we help other people out.

So us not asking people to help us out, what I used to say, like, don't deny a blessing, right?

We are denying a blessing there.

But we're also just trying to pretend like we have it all together and people owe us stuff, which is basically not true.

But I think that's a reason why we don't ask for help, is we score keep, and we don't want to feel like we're in debt.

And it's like number four is image issues.

We have a perception that people who ask for help are needy or clingy, and we don't want to be any of those things.

We also maybe have that perception, like we're always helping other people out, and we want to put other people in front of us.

So we never address what we have going in our life.

Again, selling ourself short, that's a theme.

Our inability to ask for help actually results in us living a smaller life than we're called to live, than we could live.

And then number five, I think we just don't know how.

We don't know how to be vulnerable or articulate the emotional side of the house, the soft side, which we need to focus more on.

And I think we can, I think asking for help is a social skill.

Like flirting is a social skill.

If you don't know how to flirt, you don't know how to meet new people, it's okay.

You can get better at that.

If you don't know how to be a good public speaker, how to present information from a PowerPoint slide to an unknowing audience who's never seen what you're about to present to them, that's okay.

Like you can get better at it.

If you don't know how to interview someone, how to ask a question that makes them think, not ask any question, but ask a well-timed question to the right person about the right thing in the right way, with the right pitch, with the right words.

All of that takes skill.

Being interviewed, your first job interview, did you crush it?

Probably not, because it's super hard, and it takes a lot of practice.

But the people who speak publicly thousands of times in 10 years, they're really good at it.

The people who are meeting people all the time, they're really good at it.

The stand-up comedians are really good at telling jokes.

With practice, we'll get better.

This is the same thing for asking for help.

So we talked about why it's hard.

We talked about that we can get better, but how do you get better?

A few things I want to touch on here.

One framework that I think we could apply to asking for help is the SMART method.

This framework is typically used with goal setting.

To remind you, SMART means specific, meaningful, action-oriented, results-based, and a timeline.

Time bound.

Like we can give it time for it.

So when we're asking for help, we need to be thinking about that as well.

Like let's make our ask specific.

Let's make it meaningful.

Like here's why this matters.

Action-oriented.

Here's what you could do.

Here's what it's going to result in.

Here's when I need it done.

So together, that provides some good context.

I think most of us, when we ask for help, we leave out context.

And context is really important because this is disclosure.

We are letting other people into what we have going on.

Many of us try and ask for help without disclosing a lot of information because it's a self-protective mechanism.

But we need to give people context.

The more context we give people, the more likely they'll want to support us because they know what's going on.

So first off, we give our context.

We use the smart method there.

The second part, I think is very important, is that we let people into the process.

So we share progress we have, responsibilities we've taken, maybe losses we have, like mistakes we've made.

Like for instance, I'm asking for help because I haven't studied, and I'm about to have this test.

And if there's a chance, you could give me 30 minutes just to help me understand this variable mathematic thing.

Or, hey, my car battery just died.

I had no idea that this was going to happen.

I have to be at work in 30 minutes.

Is there any way you could pick me up and take me to work?

Sharing that process.

I want to give a better example.

So imagine you buy a home.

You've been renting for a long time.

You know you need to make your rent payments to stay in your house.

But whenever you buy a home, you think, instead of rent payments, I need to make a mortgage payment.

So you got that covered.

But the first of the month comes, or the first of the year comes, and you get a big property tax bill.

And you're like, oh my gosh, I was not expecting property tax.

I just thought I needed to pay my mortgage.

Well, guess what?

We have to pay property tax.

Even if you paid off your house, you still have to pay property tax.

So then you find yourself in a position where you need to make this money in a certain amount of time to pay off your property tax bill, and you're taking stock of everything you have, and you're like, oh shoot, I'm not going to be able to make it.

So whenever you're asking for help, you have to ask somebody, could you give me a few hundred dollars?

Sometimes that's what I need to cover this margin.

And you can share with them, hey, here's what happened.

I didn't realize it.

Next time I'm going to know, I'm taking responsibility for it.

I'm trying to put everything together, but I just need this.

So sharing the process and the responsibility you're taking leads us to the third step, and that is the outcome.

Here's why it's important.

Here's why this matters.

Like I just bought this home.

The last thing I'd want is for us to feel the stress of.

Being like defaulting on a property tax, not being able to pay it off, having that pressure, having to deal with interest.

If I can't get the money now, how am I supposed to get more money then?

That's pressure.

That's stress.

So sharing the goal.

I want to be able to pay off my property tax bill in full next year.

Right?

Like that's a good goal.

So the future, why this matters.

So we have our context.

We have our process, and we have our goal or our outcome.

Together, if we use this smart method, whenever we share our context, if we're vulnerable, if we disclose information, and whenever we share that goal or outcome, like here's why this matters.

Here's what I'm going for.

I think couching that together is really helpful for asking for help.

And another thing is we're going to be tempted to say things like, hey, no worries if not, or feel free to say no.

That is a natural way to hedge our requests for help.

And it can be helpful because it does give people, it's a leading, it's like a leading question.

Hey, can you do this?

Feel free to say no, right?

You are already prefacing the question with the negative.

So it can be very helpful, but if it's an urgent thing, if it's actually a meaningful thing, don't say that.

Just say, hey, I need help.

That's hard, because we can't hedge it.

We can't try and protect ourselves.

We can't try and brace ourselves right then and there.

We are open to what's going to happen.

And people sense that.

People can sense when we actually do need help and they're a lot more likely to help us.

If it's something where you can ask a ton of people, then maybe you can preface it, like, hey, feel free to say no, because then you can just ask the next person.

But if it's urgent and meaningful, don't let yourself sabotage.

Do self-sabotage by not wanting yourself to get hurt, by trying to hedge and self-protect.

Put yourself out there for the world.

It takes risk, but that's what good relationships are about.

That's what makes great communities, and that's what's gonna make us live fuller lives, is when we take that responsibility of vulnerability.

We have to be vulnerable.

Okay, let me make sure I'm not missing anything here, because I took notes, and I've tried not to look at them.

Okay, last thing, gratitude.

Anytime we ask for help, we need to be grateful, and we need to be thinking, how do we feel about the people who are asking for help?

Do we ever feel like they're less than?

The answer probably is no.

We actually admire the people in our lives who ask for help, because we're like, dang, they're brave.

I would have a hard time doing that, and look at that.

They're going out there and they're asking for help.

We are more likely to root for them, and we want to be like them.

So know that whenever you ask for help, you're probably going to inspire somebody out there.

Thank you in advance, or you're welcome in advance.

So keep inspiring and asking for help.

And let's create communities where we can ask for help.

That's a great social skill that I think all of us should be working on, as is meeting new people.

And if you ever move to a new city, and you need to make friends fast, I made a video for that.

Be sure to like and subscribe on this video.

Comment below other videos you'd like to see.

And remember, life is better when you talk to people.

I'll see you next time.