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It's OK to Ask for Help

· Communication,Time Management,Expectations,Work Styles,Team Work

When I was diagnosed with cancer in early 2002, we knew that my life was going to change forever. There were countless experiences that we would be facing in a world of illness that we were not familiar with. One of the greatest lessons that I learned was from my dear friend, Christina.

 

To this day, I remember the phone conversation we had and where I was standing – by the bay window of my bedroom overlooking the pool. My concerns were how my spouse and I were going to get through this difficult period. We have no family in the area, we rely upon each other for most of our support, but we have dear friends. Christina reminded me that it’s my nature to help others; it’s part of my professional life and part of my personal life.

 

During that phone call, she enlightened me to the fact that I’m going to need to ASK for help. More often than not, I was answering the call of others but now I was going to need to ask for help. My spouse works 30 minutes south of our home and the clinic I was to go to for treatment was 25 minutes north of our home. We were going to have to develop a schedule and reach out to friends who could help me get to my treatments – which were often three days in the same week. We did it! In fact, August 27th was the fifteenth anniversary of my last chemo treatment and I'm totally in remission.

 

When working with clients who have productivity and time management issues, it’s very common to hear that there are distractions they can’t overcome, that they aren’t planning enough, or that they aren’t factoring in energy cycles both internally and externally for greatest effectiveness. One of the other important methods they miss is asking for help (just as I had to learn to). Sometimes we spend so much time going in circles, we don’t even realize it, or if we do, we don’t know how to get out of it. Sometimes we feel that there is no one to delegate things to or whom we can ask for help. Often, it’s because we don’t want to bother someone else or our egos would be embarrassed if someone knew that we actually needed help. What about when others ask you for help? Do you serve? Do you allow them to “bother” your routine? Do you allow their urgent needs to overcome important things that you’re working on?

 

What Christina taught me that day was that in asking others to help us, they may be getting more out of it than I was going to. On a personal level, maybe you can relate to this, the feelings of good will to our fellow man or woman. But at the workplace – where more and more organizations are striving for a “team mentality” for greater productivity or to compensate for working with less resources – financial and human – why not? Doesn’t helping others feel good? Why not ask for the help you need?

When I was diagnosed with cancer in early 2002, we knew that my life was going to change forever. There were countless experiences that we would be facing in a world of illness that we were not familiar with. One of the greatest lessons that I learned was from my dear friend, Christina.

To this day, I remember the phone conversation we had and where I was standing – by the bay window of my bedroom overlooking the pool. My concerns were how my spouse and I were going to get through this difficult period. We have no family in the area, we rely upon each other for most of our support, but we have dear friends. Christina reminded me that it’s my nature to help others; it’s part of my professional life and part of my personal life.

During that phone call, she enlightened me to the fact that I’m going to need to ASK for help. More often than not, I was answering the call of others but now I was going to need to ask for help. My spouse works 30 minutes south of our home and the clinic I was to go to for treatment was 25 minutes north of our home. We were going to have to develop a schedule and reach out to friends who could help me get to my treatments – which were often three days in the same week. We did it! In fact, August 27th was the fifteenth anniversary of my last chemo treatment and I'm totally in remission.

When working with clients who have productivity and time management issues, it’s very common to hear that there are distractions they can’t overcome, that they aren’t planning enough, or that they aren’t factoring in energy cycles both internally and externally for greatest effectiveness. One of the other important methods they miss is asking for help (just as I had to learn to). Sometimes we spend so much time going in circles, we don’t even realize it, or if we do, we don’t know how to get out of it. Sometimes we feel that there is no one to delegate things to or whom we can ask for help. Often, it’s because we don’t want to bother someone else or our egos would be embarrassed if someone knew that we actually needed help. What about when others ask you for help? Do you serve? Do you allow them to “bother” your routine? Do you allow their urgent needs to overcome important things that you’re working on?

What Christina taught me that day was that in asking others to help us, they may be getting more out of it than I was going to. On a personal level, maybe you can relate to this, the feelings of good will to our fellow man or woman. But at the workplace – where more and more organizations are striving for a “team mentality” for greater productivity or to compensate for working with less resources – financial and human – why not? Doesn’t helping others feel good? Why not ask for the help you need?

" Always bear in mind that your own resolution to success

is more important than any other one thing." – Abraham Lincoln