Mike Robbins

Infusing Life and Business with Authenticity and Appreciation

personal growth

It’s Okay to Ask for Help

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How do you feel about asking other people for help?

I’ve noticed that many of us, myself included, get a little funny about requesting support.  While we’re all different and we each have our own unique perspective, reaction, and process as it relates to reaching out to others, it seems that this can be quite a tricky exercise for most of the people I know and work with.

I have somewhat of a bi-polar relationship to asking for help myself.  I can definitely be a “lone ranger” at times and often, especially when I feel stressed or pressured, try to do everything myself – either because I feel insecure about asking for support or because I self righteously think that I’m the only one who can do it the “right” way.  On the other hand, I can sometimes be quite pushy, forceful, and presumptuous with my requests (aka demands) of support (or so I’ve been told).  Ah, to be human!

However, as I’ve also experienced personally and seen in others many times throughout my life and in my work, there is a beautiful place of balance between going it all alone and demanding help from others in an obnoxious way.  This all stems from our ability to genuinely ask for and graciously receive the support of other people.  The irony of this whole phenomenon is that most of us love to help others, while many of us have a hard time asking others for help ourselves.

Requesting support can often make us feel vulnerable.  We usually think (somewhat erroneously) that we should be able to do everything ourselves or that by admitting we need help, we are somehow being weak.  In addition, many of us are sensitive about being told “no” and by asking others to help us we put ourselves out there and risk being rejected.

What if we had more freedom to ask for what we wanted and for specific support from other people? What if we could make requests in a confident, humble, and empowering way? What if we remembered that we are worthy of other people’s help and that our ability to both ask for and receive it not only supports us, but also gives them an opportunity to contribute (which most people really want to do).

It still might be a little scary, we may get our feelings hurt from time to time, and on occasion people may have some opinions or reactions to what we ask for or how we do so. But, when we give ourselves permission and remind ourselves that it’s not only okay, but essential for us to ask for help – we can create a true sense of support and empowerment in our lives and in our relationships!

Here are a few things we can do to have more freedom and confidence when asking for help.

1) Make Genuine Requests, without Attachment. A “genuine” request can be accepted or declined, without any consequence.  In other words, if we get really upset when someone says “no” to us, not only were we attached to the outcome, it probably wasn’t a real request to begin with (it was a demand).  When we ask for what we want, without being attached to the response, we have more freedom to ask and ultimately our chances of getting what we want are greatly increased.

2) Be Easy To Support.   There are some specific things we can do to make it easier to support us.  Such as:

  • Be open to the coaching and feedback of others.
  • Thank people for their support.
  • Let people do things to support us in their own unique way instead of micro-managing them (this one is often tough for me).
  • Allow people’s support when it is offered.

3) Give Your Support to Others Generously. When we put our attention on supporting other people, the universe has a way of returning the favor.  It may or may not always come back to us from the people we help specifically, and that’s okay.  We want to do our best not to “keep score,” as many of us often do, but instead to look for opportunities to genuinely help those around us.  When we do this, we remind ourselves of the power of support and we experience it as the true “win-win” it is.

How can you start asking for and allowing the support of others?  Where in your life do you really want support from other people right now? Share your thoughts, ideas, insights, actions, and more on my blog below.

Complete the Year Consciously

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These few days before the start of the New Year have a magical and sacred quality to them.  I appreciate the lull in activity that often takes place this week and the opportunity we have to reflect back on the year that is ending, as well as to create new possibilities and intentions for the year that’s about to start.  It often seems more exciting to focus on our “resolutions” for the coming year than it does to look back.  However, before we jump ahead and start making our goals for next year, it’s essential that we complete the year that is about to end consciously.

As much as I personally love this completion process, I usually have mixed emotions reflecting back on the year.  There is often excitement, gratitude, and joy for all of the wonderful accomplishments, experiences, insights, and more.  There is also sadness, disappointment, and sorrow over the things that I didn’t accomplish, the people and things I’ll miss, and the places in my life where I struggled or failed.

This is as true as ever as 2010 comes to a close. This past year I’ve experienced some really big highs and some painful lows. I’m truly grateful for all that I’ve learned and experienced. And, while I have lots to appreciate from this past year, I’m also glad to see it end! How about you?

Due to the common mixture of emotions we experience and especially with a year like 2010 which created a lot of growth opportunities for most of the people I know and work with, it’s essential that we embrace and practice the art of completion.  Completion is a conscious process we engage in whereby we do and say whatever we need to in order to create a true sense of closure to an experience (in this case, the year that is about to end).

Because we often have resistance to authentically celebrating and appreciating ourselves, reflecting honestly on our accomplishments or our failures, acknowledging our real results or lack thereof, grieving loss with depth, and more – we usually just roll through the end of things and either avoid completion all together or move onto the next thing as fast as we can.  When we do this, however, we miss out on a sacred and important process.

Completion allows us to bring things to a close with a sense of gratitude, reverence, and peace.  When we allow ourselves to experience a sense of true completion, we move into the next phase of life bringing with us the gifts, lessons, accomplishments, experiences, and more from what we’ve just been through.  When we don’t take the time to truly complete something, we end up carrying baggage, regrets, fear, and unresolved issues into our next experience.  These things don’t serve us and often end up undermining our success and fulfillment.

As we get ready for 2011 and begin to think specifically about what we want to create and experience in the New Year, one of the most important things we can do is to complete 2010 in a conscious and powerful way.

Completion Questions

Here are some questions you can ask and answer yourself, as a way to create a sense of completion for 2010:

  • What were my biggest lessons in 2010?
  • What am I most proud of from this past year?
  • What were my biggest disappointments in 2010?
  • What am I ready to let go of from this past year?
  • What else do I need to do or say to be totally complete with 2010?

As you take some time to think about and write down your answers to these questions, see if you can reflect on this past year with a sense of appreciation and empathy.  The word “appreciate” means to recognize the value of (not necessarily like, agree with, or want to experience again).  Whether your year was “wonderful,” “terrible,” or somewhere in between – we each have so much we can appreciate about this past year.  And, it’s important for us to have as much empathy as we possibly can for ourselves (and those around us), especially right now.

If you’re anything like me, you probably had some big failures or disappointments this past year.  When we can remember that we almost always do the best we can with what we have in each moment of our lives, we can hopefully let go of our feelings of shame, guilt, or embarrassment over any of the things that didn’t go as planned for us in 2010.  And, you probably had some incredible things happen in your life this past year as well.  It’s important that we acknowledge ourselves for all of it – the highs and the lows.

See if you can create some sacred time in the next few days to share your answers to these completion questions with some of the important people in your life (and maybe ask them to answer these questions as well).  By creating a conscious intention for completion, you will give yourself the gift of appreciation for this past year and in so doing, allow a space to open up in which you can create your goals and intentions for 2011 with a sense of peace, power, and clarity.  And, as you ponder these questions, you may realize that there is something important you want to do or say in order to leave 2010 behind and step into 2011 with freedom and passion.

Have fun with this.  And, congratulations on completing another year of this magical, bizarre, wonderful adventure we call life – what a ride!

How will you consciously complete 2010? What can you do or say to leave 2010 behind you in a powerful, authentic, and peaceful way? Share your thoughts, ideas, insights, actions, and more on my blog below.