This post is Day 24 of the 31 Days to Reset Your Life Challenge. Learn more and sign up for the program here.
Yesterday, you went looking for a community to support your goals, either for your Reset Project or just to help you live your ideal life overall. But, here’s the thing. Being a part of a community is only the first step. Simply aligning yourself with like-minded people may be a waste of time if you don’t engage with them and form reciprocal relationships along the way. Today, I encourage you to ask someone for help or offer to help someone else.
Day 24: Ask for Help or Offer Help
Societal propaganda has done a very good job of programming us with the attitude that we have to “look out for ourselves” and “pull ourselves up by our bootstraps.” You may even hear or say yourself, “you do you and I’ll do me.” While these are popular sentiments, this mindset can cause two destructive outcomes:
- Perpetuate the “Superwoman Syndrome” where we feel like we need to know everything and do everything ourselves because we’re “strong” women.
- Prevent us from showing compassion to others and helping them when they’re in need of our assistance.
Let’s change that. If there’s something you’ve been struggling with in your life, ask for help. Even if it’s as simple as asking for business advice or job leads. And if there’s someone in your personal or professional community who needs assistance, offer your help. If you have some wisdom or knowledge or resource or skill that someone would benefit from, share it with them. That’s it. Just be as generous as you can.
When you’re done, please share your experience with us in the comments! From whom did you ask for help (or who did you help)? What did you ask for help with (or what did you offer help with)?
Note: If you blogged about today’s assignment, please post the link in the comments so we can read it!
|
Want more posts like this?
If so, subscribe below and join over 2,000 women who receive blog updates on personal development, entrepreneurship and lifestyle. As a bonus, you'll get a FREE COPY of my 13-page Life Mapping Workbook to help you design your ideal life in 7 key areas.
|
|
I posted my response on my blog!
http://wp.me/p1D02I-1e
Today I’m going to TRY to offer help to someone…
Update later that day
OK, didn’t ask for help today but, lets face it, thats going to be a learning curve for me(!).
However, i did attempt to offer help today by talking to my sister about being happy in the NOW and not relying on “wants” to be happy.
From small acorns, mighty oaks grow…
I’ve been “on my own” so long, this is something i’m going to need to work hard on. With asking comes the risk of rejection. Heck, even with offering, there’s a risk.
I’m actually great at GIVING help, if someone actually asks, but i never offer it.
In the words of Bart Simpson “I can’t promise i’ll try, But i’ll try to try”(!)
As a woman who became a single mom and had to “do it all” by relying on only myself (I had asked for help and not only did I not get any help, I received criticism for being a single mom), so I developed a tendency to perpetuate the pattern of doing everything myself in other areas of my life. I have always been generous in giving of my time to family, friends, and “causes” of various types. However, lately I have come to the realization that I am over-extended in giving. Yesterday’s exercise of finding a community (support group) forced me to take the first step to reach out in the other direction, to do something for “me.” As I am focusing on the “Work” section of my life plan (starting up a textile design business), I joined a professional organization called the Surface Design Association. I also took the second step of asking for help by writing an introduction letter to the Association’s chapter representative in my state, explaining my purpose in joining the group (to learn marketing and promotion techniques applicable to art production) and requested that she provide me with leads to persons and/or resources whereby I can obtain the information about how others have done it successfully.
These two exercises (Day 23 and 24) are so useful that I might also do the same thing with the “relationships” area of my life (i.e. to find more friends locally, to offset the current level of isolation I am experiencing after job loss a year ago.)
Pingback: Reset Your Life Day 26: Reflect, Comment and Connect | Happy Black Woman | Personal Development for Success in Life, Love & Business
I decided to ask a former co-worker and a former professor for help as far as applying for grad school and finding funding is concerned. I was too embarrassed to admit that even with all the books that I read I still “feel” ignorant about the process.
I don’t think this reluctance as being a super woman complex – more like I hate to be a bother or a burden to someone else (Now THAT was hard to admit.)
What do you do when you ask for help and no one helps?
Hi,
You keep asking! you may find that you are asking the wrong people. This should NEVER stop you from getting the help you need
Being the eldest child, I’ve always been the one in charge. If the siblings needed something, they had to ask me. I haaaaaate asking for help. I don’t even ask my parents because I feel like at this point in my life, I should not be a burden to them. But guess what? Trying to do everything on my own was literally making me sick.
I learned the hard way several times that I can’t do everything by myself. “No man is an island.” When I seriously need it, I know that my parents are always there to help me.
I have done this recently, so I guess I can share my experience. There is a job that I really believe I would be great at @ my current place of employment. The problem is that a) I’ve been in my current role for 4 months [always the forward-thinking woman] and b) that someone else currently holds the position. One of my aunt is the Director of Human Resources at her company, which is a Fortune 500 company, so I knew she would have some wonderful advice to share with me. She gave me the following steps to advance my career and set myself up for this position.
1) Become someone that the current position holder can trust and count on to do a great job. Volunteer to help with a project and do an awesome job, so that 1 of 2 things will happen. 1) It will show that I am capable of being in that position and that I can work well with others and/or 2) that the current position holder is incapable and therefore, in need of being replaced.
For more, read: http://keikokaveri.tumblr.com/post/2478467125
This week I asked for help with updating my resume. For some reason that is such a hard task for me. My friend actually made me think about the whole resume writing thing in different way, which helped. She’s awesome! One of friends Jackie who joined the challenge is going to start her own blog for Hopeless Romantics and she asked me for my opinion and a little advice. I was excited that she came to me. Look out for her blog in 2011. Hey Jacks!
How will we be able to find her blog?
I struggle with asking for help. I will ask a total of three people in my life for advice, but actual help is something I struggle with. This is something that I really am working on and will really be a shift for me. Like mentioned in the post I do struggle with “Superwoman Syndrome,” so from today forward if I really need help I’ll ask.
As far as offering help that’s something I do all the time. So that isn’t difficult for me at all. But I will step in more when I see people need help but are afraid to ask.
http://wp.me/pBR3E-AZ
i agree with you 100 percent..I don’t know why I have such a hard time asking for help