Why Asking for Help Can Bring Us Closer

Are you the person who always says, “I’ve got it,” even when you really don’t? For a long time, I had a hard time asking for help. Part of it was independence. I’m very much an “I’ll figure it out” person.

But if I’m being honest, there was something else underneath it: I really didn’t like the possibility of hearing no. It felt safer to handle things myself than to ask someone for help and risk feeling rejected, disappointed or like I was imposing.

Which is a little ironic because I genuinely love helping other people. Apparently, I was perfectly comfortable being on the giving end. Receiving? Different story.

Lately, though, I’ve started to see asking for help differently. Because when we never ask, we don’t just save ourselves from the possibility of hearing no. We also keep other people from having the opportunity to say yes.

When Connected Hearts was still just an idea, I desperately needed honest feedback from someone who resembled the women I hoped to bring together. I thought of a woman I’d recently met who would be perfect.

Then I spent several days debating whether I could ask her.

We barely knew each other. She was busy. It was a lot to ask. I didn’t want her to feel obligated.

Eventually, I asked.

She said yes.

And then she spent four hours with me in a library conference room talking through my ideas and giving me thoughtful feedback.

Four hours!

That experience stayed with me.

A few months later, I needed help choosing a backdrop for an event. This felt like a very big decision at the time, which tells you something about what launching a business can do to a person’s sense of proportion.

I knew someone with a great eye who could help.

Again came the internal debate. Don’t bother her.

But I mustered up the courage and asked. She was happy to help.

Then came a bigger test. I needed help figuring out the room layout for an event. The person who knew the space best was a woman I barely knew, and we’d gotten off to a somewhat rocky start.

Every instinct I had said, Absolutely not. Figure it out yourself.

Instead, I called her.

She not only helped me over the phone, she met me at the clubhouse that same day. We moved tables, talked through the room and she even drew a floor plan for me.

And something else happened in each of these situations. I felt differently about the person afterward. There was a little more trust, warmth and familiarity between us because I’d allowed myself to need something and they’d chosen to show up.

In the case of the woman I’d gotten off to a rocky start with, asking for help even gave us an opportunity to see each other differently.

That’s when I realized I’d been getting something wrong. I thought that by not asking, I was being considerate. But I was also making the decision for other people.

I was deciding they were too busy. I was deciding I’d be imposing. I was deciding they wouldn’t want to help, without ever giving them the opportunity to choose for themselves.

That doesn’t mean everyone will say yes. Nor should they. People get to have boundaries, schedules and priorities of their own. And a no doesn’t necessarily mean what my rejection-sensitive brain sometimes wants to make it mean.

I’m still not someone who finds asking easy. My first instinct is still to (try to) figure it out myself. But I remember what these experiences taught me.

Asking for help isn’t necessarily an imposition. Sometimes it’s an opportunity to let another person show up for us. And when we let someone do that, we may get more than the help we asked for.

We may get a little closer, too.