Can You Open This Water?

Ask and Accept Help.  For everyone else, I’m a doer, a fixer, a problem-solver.  So, when I had a problem, I wasn’t sure how to fix it for myself.

The problem is that I went roller skating.  More precisely, the problem is that I went roller skating and fell.  I broke my arm:  my right arm, my dominant arm.

So, what is a doer to do?

For the first time in a very long time, I needed to ask for help.  It wasn’t the kind of help I am used to:  a tech solve from my kids, business advice from my attorney or thinking through an idea or business opportunity with my best friend.  It was the small things like opening a bottle or can, and the small things that felt like big things:  helping with the dog and folding laundry.  Add to it, I am still in nomad-mode, without a support system or friends and neighbors to pitch in.  The asks were going to be even bigger because I felt like I was going to cause inconvenience.  And one of my core values is not to cause inconvenience (see:  doer & fixer above).

I had to ask people to travel to me to help. I needed family, friends and friends’ kids to come and stay a few days and do all the things that were hard or not feasible for me to do myself. The asking was almost more painful than the wrist. It was so hard to ask for what I needed and to accept the help even when someone was here for that distinct purpose.

I asked the cashier at the grocery store to open bottles for me before I purchased them.  I asked the vet staff to open packages and help me put the dog in the car.  Friends and family stacked wood, shoveled snow, ground spices, folded sheets.  Clients understood when I had to cancel in-person training workshops.  No one gave me a hard time. No one thought it was weird.  No one made me feel bad.

Where could you do better at asking for what you need?

• Could you ask for more training, clearer directions or request a different workstream or manager at your job?

• Could you push past the discomfort of asking someone you don’t know well for job leads, networking help or mentorship?

• Could you ask someone to hold your baby or to babysit your kids so you can shower or run an errand?

• Could you ask for the exact support you need when you are sick, going through treatment, or grieving?  And the ask could be, “thank you, but we cannot eat another lasagna”.

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It’s funny that when you ask … you actually receive.  

And it isn’t just asking; it is accepting offers of assistance gracefully.  It has taken me a lot of years to get here and I still think I have a long way to go.  But for now, my effort has been acknowledged by those who know me well and know how hard it was to ask.