Asking for help is a skill
Women who cannot ask for help usually describe it as a personality trait. I am just independent. I would rather do it myself. It is easier than explaining.
Sometimes that is true. More often what is underneath is a suspicion that needing help is evidence of not coping, and that not coping will change how people see you.
Vague asks get vague answers
Most asking fails on specificity. Let me know if you need anything is not an offer anybody can take up, and neither is I could use some help at the moment.
The person wants to help and does not know what to do, so they do nothing, and you conclude that people do not show up. A specific ask has a much better hit rate.
- Could you take the children on Saturday morning for two hours?
- Would you read this and tell me if it makes sense?
- Can I call you on Thursday evening? I need to talk something through.
A specific ask is easier to say yes to, and much easier to refuse cleanly.
Let them say no
Part of what makes asking feel enormous is that you have already decided a no would be a rejection. It usually is not. People have their own weeks.
Making the ask easy to decline — adding no problem at all if not — is not weakness. It is what makes the yes trustworthy when it comes.
Practise on small things
Do not make your first ask in years a large one, at a moment of crisis, to someone whose answer matters enormously. That is a hard exam to sit untrained.
Ask someone to pick something up on their way. Ask a colleague to look at two paragraphs. The point is repetition, so that when you need something significant the mechanism is not completely rusted.
