INTRODUCTION
Let’s face it, asking for help sucks!
What’s even worse is that all too often you are expected to relive the specific pains of your particular situation to your helper in response to the question “Tell me, what’s the problem?”
Hearing this question can make you feel like a failure for disrupting your helper with what may well seem like a simple matter to them. It can be embarrassing and defeating, especially when the help that you receive doesn’t seem even remotely profound. This can make receiving the very thing that you wanted – help - also suck. The problem gets solved but you somehow just can’t end up shaking that feeling that something still isn’t right. There are also times you go through all of the trouble to ask for help only to be rejected and not receive the help you had set your focus on.
You huff and puff as all you want is to get the problem that is annoying you solved in as quiet a manner as possible without anyone finding out or worse, holding it against you, stored up for future use.
I know how you feel and what you are going through. I have been in the same position so many times. However, I decided that I wouldn’t allow anyone or anything to get in the way of my destiny – not even myself. I committed to doing my best to find ways to successfully ask for help without all of the awkwardness that it seems to come with by default. Unfortunately, I am not here to present a sure-fire one-step method that teaches you how to ask for help (despite this starting to sound like a good idea right about now). What I do have to offer you is this book as a guide so then you too can get better at seeking and receiving help.
When I engage with fellow millennials and Gen Z’s, I often hear about deep moments of regret that tend to paralyse our willpower and desire to rise up after a fall and live a full life. Seeing the change in those who have braved the journey from the cave of despair to the field of possibilities – where they grasp the blooming flowers prepared for them by boldly raising their hands to ask for help — motivated me to become a guide and offer my own hand to hold. With this help, many millennials have overcome the dark roots of regret that had begun infesting their garden of hope.
As a father raising my children to pursue their dreams, blowing the lid off 1 feels gapingly incomplete without also teaching and equipping them with how to successfully ask for help when they need it. Seeing them develop a sense of agency while still maintaining the courage to ask for help provided further inspiration to me. It’s on us as millennials to learn how to ask for help and then to teach it to the next generation; our children, our younger siblings, our students, and our team members in the workplace. When we model being comfortable with asking for help and normalise helping others, we in turn help the future generations become less self-centred.
But how do we go about asking for help? If you have never been trained to ask or had asking for help modelled to you, it will end up becoming a silent wish.
As you are burdened with the weight of life’s responsibilities and the high peer pressure of comparison and adult expectations, all you can do is wish that by some miracle, you will get help with your problems. Is there a perfect time to seek help? How about knowing where to go for help - who you should ask and who you should maybe not ask?
Where do you need help most in your life? Are you at the point of being able to engage in problem identification or are you at the earlier point of problem acknowledgement? Are you able to verbalise the particular problem you are facing?
What’s your “I have a problem with…” statement?
We live in a world with the common cultural message that individualism and independence are the pinnacle of adulthood. The weight of this achievement – being self-made and having everything figured out – seems to be thrust specifically upon the shoulders of us millennials. It stifles our ability to reach out and ask for help or, in turn, to offer help to those in need. It’s as if we are operating by a “stay in your lane” unwritten rule. We have been endowed with so much knowledge and access to so many resources that the world thinks we should be ok on our own. The promotion of interdependence has lost its place and it is time to restore it. As
Africans, we need to restore the principle of Ubuntu – ‘I am, because we are’ – in our human relationships. Being self-reliant does not guarantee success. In fact, all it guarantees is failure.
A 2019 survey report on mental health in US workplacesi revealed that half of millennials and 75% of Gen Zs have left work due to some sort of mental health reason. This is compared to only 34% of the overall respondents, revealing a generational shift in the awareness of when one’s mental health is being impaired and what to do about it. Another interesting finding in the report was the spread over the different demographics, with half of the Black and Latinx respondents at least partially leaving their job in comparison to 32% of Caucasian respondents.
Employees need to work in a conducive environment to make it easier for the them to talk about their mental health. They also need to be supported so that they can develop the self-awareness to know when there is a problem and what kind of help is needed.
When an individual develops this increased awareness, they are better able to understand where they are positioned in terms of who is around them that can offer help and what avenues and mechanisms they can utilise in doing so. You may not have to look too far because you are not alone. Employers can support their employees to obtain this awareness through various initiatives. This includes leveraging various mental health awareness
campaigns and maintaining a mental health ‘first aid kit’ that employees can access which contains information on healthy and acceptable coping mechanisms to deal with triggers. Famous ‘blue chip’ companies are known to have game rooms. These not only aid in developing creative problem solving skills but they also provide an avenue for employees to take a health break while at work. Finally, employers should establish acceptable mechanisms for their employees to report and have open conversations about unhealthy working conditions without being penalised for doing so.
The pressure can become overwhelming to the point of being unbearable at times. If you could just snap your fingers and change it all, you would. Choosing to simply go silent and possibly ghosting everyone is unfortunately what so many decide to do. When you are at work, it’s not cool to just disappear unless you are in grave danger. But if your mental state is at a critical point, it is understandable! The point is not to get to such a state. Communicating that you are facing a problem is the least you can do to honour your employer and co-workers. But if you find yourself at a critical crossroads, reach out immediately for help.
When I sit with my fellow business owners and managers, there is always a complaint about a young millennial or Gen Z worker who just vanishes. For days, they aren’t reachable by phone, text, or email, only to later resurface mentioning that it had got to be too much for them. Life can become overbearing and
this is why we have been given the gift of help – to keep us from carrying our problems on our shoulders all alone and to revive our hope that things can change and get better. You can be strengthened.
There is no such thing as a completely self-made person. No greatness is achieved in isolation. Without help, greatness cannot be achieved. We rely on one another to learn, to grow, and to succeed. Imposing upon people’s lives without making them feel imposed upon is what I want to guide you to achieving in this book. I want to equip you to help you make successful requests for help. In life, you may need to approach someone who you don’t know or who you’ve never met for help. The tools in this book will better prepare you for such an encounter.
My endeavour in this book is to make an appeal on the usefulness of help – as well as presenting steps and guides focused on asking for help. I am not attempting to guilt or condemn you into having a more favourable relationship with help. The person most likely to persuade you to change your mind and relationship with help is you. Should you, after reading this book, be persuaded to change your mind and improve your relationship with help, let it be so because you decided to do so. I will lay out several reasons and techniques that I have found to work to give you the opportunity to exercise your free will. You will have the chance to select the reasons that you find most compelling. I outline how you can begin asking for help, I show you when it is a good time to ask for help, and
where you can go for help. I will also lay out the responsibilities of the parties involved in a helping relationship as well as sharing my thoughts on ‘crying for help’. It is my hope that once you’re done reading this book, you will have a real sense of ownership and responsibility whatever your choice and reasons. My task and role will be to support you to recruit your own sense of agency and to equip you with a sense of urgency when it comes to seeking and embracing help.
Look at each reason as a question for you to contemplate. Ask yourself: “Does this apply to me? Can this possibly change and improve my situation?”
My hope is that at the very least, you will disarm your defensive techniques and engage your curiosity and possibly enhance your perspective too. Taken together, the techniques and tools shared in this book will increase your resolve to grow, to bounce back, and to be more courageous. You will also be more motivated to prune the weeds of regret rooted in and around your purpose, your destiny, and your life.
Being deserving and worthy demands raising your hand and asking for help when you need it. It means shifting your focus from ‘How did I get here?’ to ‘What do I need to do to get out of here and not get back here?’. It is achieved through getting help to unwrap the beautiful gifts that life presents you in the form of opportunities. The wrapping may not be beautiful but successful people develop
the skill to claim them as gifts. Getting better at asking for help will, in one way or another, aid you with all of the other problems that you face. I don’t want you to settle for what you have been given or the place that you find yourself in right now.
Now, let us move on to the opening arguments of my case for help. I urge you to keep reading before making a rush decision.
Happy reading.
