How to Ask For Help Without Feeling Like You’ve Failed
How to Ask For Help Without Feeling Like You’ve Failed
Have you ever wondered why allowing others to help you is so hard? Meanwhile day after day you’re trying to figure out how to do it all, fit it all into your day and STILL have time for what matters?
Delegation AKA asking for help, is the act of handing off tasks to someone else. It’s the art of asking for help. It’s letting someone else do something that you need to do.
I know you’ve heard all the tips and tricks to become skilled at the art of delegation. You won’t find that here… here, we will dive deep into why it can be hard for us to delegate and the emotional roller coaster we can experience when we try. To be effective, delegating is as much about mindset as it is about strategy.
Asking For Help
Delegation is simply asking for help. Asking for help can be hard and bring up several emotions depending on your past experiences that relate to trust, relationships, control and the ability to rely on others to support you.
For some, handing off work to someone else brings relief, excitement and satisfaction, while others may feel like they’re failing or inadequate. And still, others may experience increased stress, fear of being let down or fear of imperfection.
Our mindset can significantly affect everything we do in our lives and businesses. When we ask for support, it means we have to rely on others, which is hard sometimes. The experiences we’ve had in the past around relying on others impacts our current emotions and the mindset surrounding them.
Especially if you’ve been let down or when you’ve trusted others, and they didn’t keep their word, or they weren’t there for you or didn’t do what they said they would.
Feelings of abandonment can stay with us
and affect the decisions you make today.
Perfection
Perfection is an outward expression that we don’t feel complete on the inside. When we want to control everything, it’s because we have an unsettling inside of us that feels like we aren’t enough. And if we make it perfect, maybe we will feel like enough, or maybe someone in our world will think it’s great, and we’ll get that outside validation and approval.
Perfection is when we’re worried about being judged by others, but what we’re really doing is judging ourselves. Perfection brings with it a sense of having to prove something. It highlights your feelings of not being good enough as you are right now, and you try convincing yourself and others that you have it together, you’re smart, a good mom, a good business owner, and a good leader.
Control and Letting Go of it
When we want control, we feel like a part of us is out of control. It may be hard to tell what it is and something is amiss and unaligned. We try hard to have it all together, keep it all going and be in balance, but the more we push for that, the more out of control we feel and the harder we try.
Similar to perfection, control also covers up our insecurities. When we have control, we can let fewer people in, and when fewer people are close to us, our risk of being hurt, let down or “found out” is less. If we’re in control, we have the upper hand and aren’t vulnerable.
Based on our experience up until now we’ve learned
that we can only count on ourselves, and others can’t be trusted.
Letting go of that control means we have trust; when we have trust, we rely on something or someone else. When we do that, it can feel uncomfortable because we know it’s possible that we’ll be let down, not done correctly or at all. This can be very unsettling for someone who needs things to be a certain way to feel safe, secure, heard, seen and validated. ReGain explains it well when they suggest noticing the storm raging around you and observing your experiences, thoughts, and emotions.
Getting to the root
Awareness is the start of everything. Start recognizing when you need to be in control or feel anxious that something isn’t done how you want it. Dig into why… and keep digging.. see where it takes you.
Here are some prompts to help you get started:
What made you feel that way?
- Why does this need to be something you do?
- What happens if you don’t do it and someone else does?
- Why are you truly feeling ______? Keep asking yourself that question as you dig down and find the root feeling beneath the initial reactions.
- If this wasn’t perfect, what’s the worst that could happen?
- Do you want to prove something? What is it? Why?
What scares you about this situation?
- How do you want to feel?
What could happen if this didn’t turn out how you wanted it to?
Did something happen before that made you feel this way?
What could you do instead if you asked for support?
Could you change your mind if this doesn’t go how you wanted it to?
- What could you do to make a slight shift to feel better?
Delegation can help us thrive in many ways in our lives and our businesses. It can also help others thrive. When we give a task or responsibility to others, we give them a chance to succeed, learn and discover parts of themselves too.
to grow to make our desired impact.
It allows us to stay in our lane and do what we enjoy and are good at. Delegation is a skill and something that takes practice and courage. You’re reprogramming and creating new pathways of trust, and that, my friend, is powerful!
You have the power to do this. I believe in you.
If you’d like to lean into more support, I’m here to help through 1:1 business coaching or Reiki healing sessions.
Together we’ll work through the support you need and the support you deserve. I’ll help you discover the emotions that may be making it harder than it needs to be so you can finally be free to do the things you enjoy the most.
Click here to learn about my 1:1 business coaching offerings. If feeling better throughout your body is key for you check out my in person and distant Reiki healing sessions.
I believe in you,
