Asking for Help

We all want to be perceived as someone who has it all together. We want others to see us as happy, successful, fulfilled, and on track with how our life is going. However, what if we don’t always feel that way? What if we sometimes need help from others in order to gain some additional perspective on how to deal with our life's challenges?

As someone who writes and coaches on topics that aim to help people live happier lives, I still sometimes need someone else in whom I can confide and turn to for guidance. That’s because when we are closer to a situation sometimes even though we know the logical answer, and even though we technically might know what to do, it is still nice to get a fresh perspective, even if it tells us what we might already know.

Consequently, while we might think it is a sign of weakness to ask for help, it is actually a sign of great strength. Vulnerability is not a disadvantage. On the contrary, it is a declaration of our ability to accept ourselves and love ourselves no matter what. It is also a sign of being open and willing to learn and grow from our experiences.

We are so afraid to be seen as weak and less than “perfect,” but if we look a bit closer we will realize that everyone has their own moments of vulnerability. And I am willing to bet that there is no one on this earth that has had a completely worry-free, vulnerability-free, problem-free, or otherwise “perfect” life. Everyone comes across some sort of setback, insecurity, or conflict at some point because we do not live in a vacuum. In fact, we interact with so many different people and we have so many different experiences that it is impossible not to have some moments where we question ourselves and what is going on around us.

And so, when we ask for help we needn’t feel embarrassed about it because, rest assured, whomever we are asking for that help has likely also had their own issues to deal with at one time or another. But in a way that’s what makes us all good advice-givers, i.e., that we each have perspective to share that might be helpful to someone else who is experiencing what we had either gone through ourselves, or learned about through our conversations with others.

So instead of trying to do everything on our own, let’s be a little bit more lenient with ourselves and forgiving of our perceived shortcomings. There is no shame in asking for some guidance from time-to-time because from that we can become even stronger in our ability to discern, for when we learn from others, we also become teachers in our own right. And when we admit that we might need some help, we also bond and connect to one another through the very nature of the human experience.

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