Reframing Asking for Help

Do you struggle to ask for help—even when you really need it? Or maybe you COULD do everything yourself… but you’re exhausted, overwhelmed, or quietly resentful?

In today’s episode, we're diving into WHY asking for help feels so hard for so many of us (especially STRONG, independent women!!) and how to reframe it from something “needy” into something RESOURCEFUL, HUMBLE, and CONNECTED.

This episode is a gentle pep talk and mindset shift for anyone who:
* Feels like they have to do everything on their own
* Struggles with resentment because they’re not getting help they haven’t asked for
* Believes asking for help makes them weak, needy, or a burden
* Wants more ease, connection, and support in everyday life

If you’ve ever said, “I just don’t like asking for help,” this episode is for you. 💛

Share this with someone who needs the reminder—you don’t have to do it all alone.

Follow on Instagram LINK
Apple Podcasts LINK
Youtube LINK
Spotify LINK

Don't forget to check out Shared Shelves Book Club pod!

Transcript

0:40

Hello. Hello. Welcome to another episode of the Pod. I am so happy that you are here today I am talking about something that I feel like is relevant to all of us. I feel like it's something that we all kind of battle with every once in a while, whenever we are trying to do things and we don't wanna ask for help or it's just not even like a gut instinct for us. I know for me. This is something I've been thinking about a lot lately as we continue into the new year and are moving toward our goals and all these different things that we want to achieve, but really just as we go through our lives, I know that for me, asking for help can be really challenging. And so I've been working on how to reroute that in my own brain and my own mindset and just my mental. Way of thinking about asking for help. So I thought it might be something that would resonate with you as well. If you are someone who struggles to ask for help or it feels icky whenever you do, or it's just not even your gut instinct, like you just constantly think, anything I get done, I have to do myself. This is an episode for you because I'm gonna be talking a little bit about how to reframe that. And then also just kind of giving you a why behind why it's okay to ask for help. Because even though I think logically sometimes we believe like, yes, it's okay to ask for help logically, I know that in my brain it makes sense that we have to ask for help because we can't do anything. Well, we can't do everything all on our own, even though that logically can make sense. I know for me sometimes there's a really difficult disconnect between what logically makes sense and what I feel emotionally or just kind of what I, my instinct is, or my gut re action is, or my gut reflexes because. It's really, really hard to reprogram beliefs that we already have grown up to believe to be true. And I, I don't know where it was portrayed in social media. If you're a millennial like I am, I think I'm on the younger end of millennial and older end of gen. Z. Yeah, X lineal, I think is what I am. If you grew up in that time period, I feel like there were a lot of things in culture, just in media and some of the TV shows and movies and whatnot that we consume about women not asking for help and just doing things on their own and any, and a lot of it also is empowering. Like, oh, if you. If you wanna get anything done, you have to do it on your own kind of thing. And women coming into the workforce and becoming more independent and all of that. But I almost feel like the pendulum can swing so far the other way, where it's like, okay, yes, we are empowered, strong women and we can take care of ourselves and we. Don't need no man to take care of us and all of that. Sorry if you're a man listening in, but all of, all of that, yes, that's good and that's true and we should be independent. But at the same time, it, I feel like, at least in myself, it has created some of this independence that keeps me from asking people for help and sometimes it's not even. Sometimes it's not even like a co cognitive, like coherent thought or not a, what am I trying to say? It's not something that's at the forefront of my brain conscious thought. It's something that is like subconscious, hidden and underneath what I believe about myself, and I think it's like we all have this belief about ourselves, or many of us have this belief about ourselves that we need to prove ourselves or that we need to accomplish things on our own and we need to be independent. And that's where our worth comes from. And that's just not true. But something that I want to talk about in this episode is I do feel like sometimes I can say like, oh no, I'm okay asking for help. Like if I need help. Lifting something, then I can ask for help. I actually have a funny story about that because that's not even true. But asking for more than we need is, okay. Right. So. Sometimes we can say like, oh, if I really needed this thing, then I would ask for it. But since I don't really need help doing this thing, I'm not going to ask for it. Like cleaning the house, like you don't need help cleaning the house. You can clean the house on your own, but it is so much easier and better and probably better for your mental load too, not just your workload to have help doing that. If other people made the mess as well, asking your kids or asking your husband or even outsourcing the help. Paying a housekeeper every once in a while, something like that. The story that I have about Home Depot is so funny because I, we are renovating our bathroom right now, our master bathroom, and it's attached to our master bedroom. So if you're watching this on YouTube, you can see I'm in the usual space like podcast room, studio office. It's a multifunctional room. We use to record or that I use to record the podcast, but it looks a little bit different because I'm hiding the fact that we are sleeping on the futon, which if you're looking, it's like below where my arms are right now, but we are sleeping in this separate room because it also multifunctional. I said it also is kind of the guest bedroom or the second room that we have. What functions is a bed. It's really a futon in, and so we're sleeping in here while our bathroom is being remodeled for the next couple weeks. But when I was at Home Depot, so I've ordered the supplies for a lot of these things, like the tile and everything that we need for the bathroom. But when I did the Home Depot pickup, so I like ordered it online and then picked it up at Home Depot. I went to Home Depot and I was. I was like, oh no, it's okay. I can handle it on my own. And the guys were like, are you sure? Is it okay? I didn't bring Jared with me. And I was like, no, no, I'll be fine. It's fine. So I got like the vinyl plank flooring. It's just in boxes. I got that and put it in. I got the tile for the shower floor, put that in, and then I go to pick up. The shower tile for like the walls, and they had them in bundles of two, but because I ordered an uneven number, there was like a bundle that only had one. And I picked that up and I was like, oh, this is kind of heavy. And I put it in the car and I was able to handle that one. But then multiplied by two for all the other bundles, I was like, I cannot do this. I, I was, you know, like getting down like in my squat mode, using my legs, not my back, like all that stuff. If you don't know me, I'm like a five foot one woman. Pretty short, petite, like I do work out, but apparently not enough to lift these tiles. And I was like a little bit embarrassed because I had rejected their help, but I was like. There's no way that I can get this tile in here. And so I went back in and I was like, I'm so sorry I said that I didn't need help, but it turns out that I do. These are really heavy. And when the guy came out to come help me, I was like, we can like both get one end if you want of the box'cause it is pretty heavy. And he was like, oh, it's fine. And then he went, he goes. Makes me laugh, like why is our gut instinct to not let people help us? But anyway, he goes to pick it up and he like got it up. But I could tell he kinda like had to put his back into it, gets it in the car, and then there's like three more bundles still and he is like, yeah, we can go ahead and go end to end. And it was like we had the same reaction where. Earlier when the guys said, Hey, I can help with this. I, my gut reaction was like, no, I don't need help. I'm fine. And then he had the same thing where I was like, Hey, I like know how heavy this stuff is. We can go end to end. And he was like, oh, no. Gut reaction. I'm fine. And then after he has more information, then he is like, okay, yeah. I need help. So all that to say that technically I didn't need help for the like other shower, tile and flooring, but I could have just accepted it. When someone is offering help a lot of the time, it helps. The, it gives them joy just as much as it gives you. Now, in that case, a little bit different because it's a work setting. Maybe it didn't give that guy joy to help me out, I don't know. But in our home lives, for instance, like when we're ask, when we're asking to help with cleaning, a lot of the time, yes, it's like, oh, I don't really wanna help with that, whatever. But I think a lot about times when I'm just at home and I'm kind of like resentful and like grumbling about these things that I have to do and oh, I have to run here and I have to run here and I have to go do this and I have to clean this and people are coming over tomorrow and I have to do this. And then all of a sudden Jared, like, I'll be talking to Jared about it. And I don't realize like. How honestly kind of worked up I am and maybe a little bit resentful and he is like, oh, well is there anything on that list that I could do? And I'm like, uh, and at that point I always have trouble with it because. It's not something that I need him to do, but it's something that would be helpful for him to do. Like running up to Walmart or going and grabbing this thing or running this errand for me, or cleaning, vacuuming, the living room, whatever it is, and I struggle with it. But then I remember that I feel like for him as well, he feel helpful when he does those things, and I can't expect him to read my mind. So if I'm sitting there grumbling about all these things that I have to do and kind of frustrated that nobody's helping me. I can't expect, like that's not fair to him. That's not fair to anybody because he probably would help if I asked him to. And a lot of the time we're sitting there like resentful and building up frustrated thoughts and feelings about someone who's not helping us when we haven't asked them, and they probably would be happy to. I know over Christmas season, this was something where someone that I knew needed help and I was like ecstatic to help'em with it. A lot of the time, whenever, like especially with. My friends who are having babies and whatnot, like I love it is so exciting to me when someone's like, actually, would you be able to like DoorDash us this meal? Or actually, I totally forgot to grab this pack of diapers. Would you mind grabbing one on your way over whenever you come over for dinner or whatever it is, like, I love doing that stuff. So a lot of the time, whenever you're asking someone for help, you're. Or you're not asking for them for help, you are keeping them from the joy of helping. Think about yourself. Whenever someone in your life who doesn't ask you for help very often think about when they ask you for help, like. You're probably excited about that. Now, I know that there are some people that ask for help a lot, and maybe this doesn't apply to you as much, or maybe you know someone in your life that's like that and that shapes the way that you think about being needy whenever you ask someone for help, and that's fair. I totally get it. But there's something that we could learn from those people that are willing to ask for more than they need and willing to ask for more than is like necessary, quote unquote. Because if you never ask the answer's always no. Right? So I say this a lot in my job or in my previous job. I say this a lot where. If you never call someone to ask them like, Hey, will you do this? Will you partner with my company on this? Or would you be willing to sponsor this event? Or whatever it is. Like, I think in our work life we can. This feels a little bit more tangible and it feels a little bit more logical that, oh yeah, of course I would ask somebody for their business when I'm in business. But then why is it any different when we enter our home lives, or even maybe not, not so much when it comes to the business that you're. Conducting, but like if you have a one-on-one with your manager or you have meetings with your manager or something like that, is there something that you are really upset about or maybe not upset about, but you need help with in your job? You need support. And you could ask them for like, the worst they're gonna say is no. Right? Like the worst they're gonna say is no. But the best they're gonna say is yes and help you out with that. So There's so much merit to asking for help, and I think a lot of us just like roll through life myself included, where we just like don't have that gut impulse to ask people whenever we need something or whenever it's just gonna make our lives easier. I had another example of this, this like story time I feel like. But I had another example of this recently where I am on the sourdough journey. I think I shared about this in a previous episode, but I'm starting on sourdough and it's really fun and it's also very time consuming. And there are little, little things that you have to do. And one of the things that you have to do after you make your dough is like set a timer and then you do these stretch and folds, but you can't do them all at once. You pull, it's. It's where you pull the dough and you like fold it over itself. You've probably seen a million videos of it now at this point, because Facebook and Instagram know that I am making sourdough. I get so many reels of it on any given day. But anyway, you pull the dough up. If you're watching on YouTube, you can see what I'm doing. But you pull the dough up and fold it over and then you like turn the bowl one quarter of the way and then you do it again. And so by the time you've turned it four. Times and stretched and folded over itself. It's all been folded over itself. Now you have to do that four times within the first two hours, so you have to set a timer for 30 minutes in between each one. Well, there was a night this week that I was making my dough and I had it timed perfectly in my head and then I realized, and I was gonna make the dough at like right before I went to bed, so that whenever I woke up in the morning, it like rested overnight. It proofed is what it's called, or like bulk fermented. And I was sitting there and I was like, oh my gosh. Because I was about to go to bed and I was like, oh shoot, I can't make the dough because I forgot about the stretch and folds and if I want it to, if I wanna include that, which I don't know what would happen if I didn't include that. But if I wanna include that, then I'm gonna have to stay up another two hours because I have to stay up 30 minutes and do the, these stretching folds four times. And Jared was right there and he was like, well, is it something that I could do? And I'm sitting there like. Uh, yeah, like, I don't know why he couldn't. I was like, how about I make the dough and then I wait 30 minutes and then I show you how to do the first one and then you can do the rest? And sometimes it's just as easy as that. Maybe you have this thing in your head where you're like, oh, no one else can do this because I'm the only one that knows how to do this. Can you teach someone else? Can you show someone else what you're doing? Could you take five minutes of your time and save two or three hours of your own time by letting someone else do that? I feel like it's just one of those things where we, it's really a pride thing for me, which took me a long time to realize, but because I feel like, oh, I have to do everything on my own. No one else knows how to do it it's a pride thing for me. And at that point, asking for help is the humble thing to do. So maybe you can help yourself, rewrite that mindset in your head of, when I ask for help, I'm needy. How about when you ask for help, you are resourceful. Or when you ask for help, you are humble. Or when you ask for help, you're making yourself vulnerable and that's a good thing and it makes you more connected to people. The last thing I wanna say about this is kind of in conjunction with my previous episode, which was about. Things that may be holding you back. And one of those things is like a conditional statement. So if you're the type of person that says all the time, like, oh, I just don't like asking for help. Oh, I just don't like asking for help, stop, now I get it. I am there with you. It can be a struggle. But instead of saying, I don't like asking for help, you can start saying things like, asking for help isn't needy. Asking for help is humble. Asking for help isn't a bad thing. And Reminding yourself that asking for help is not negative. It doesn't need to be negative. And when you say, I don't like asking for help, you're just reaffirming the idea in your brain and in your body that asking for your help makes you weak or makes you needy, or whatever it is that you think. But when you put yourself out there enough to ask someone, when you make yourself vulnerable enough to ask someone for help, imagine the girl or the person or whoever you think in your life that you're like, oh, they're perfect. They've got it all together. They always do everything right., And they probably never need help. Or like, I could never be them because they just have it all together, How big of a deal would it be if that person reached out to you right now and was like, hey, I totally forgot to get a gift for this bridal shower. Would you be willing to go in on one with me or would you be willing, willing to pick one up for me Or I don't know, maybe it's somebody at work and they reach out and they're like, Hey, if you were possibly running early, I am gonna be late to the meeting and I forgot my coffee. Would you be willing to bring me coffee or buy or whatever? You would probably jump at that, right? You would probably be like, oh girl, I got you. How fun does that feel whenever someone reaches out and they know they can depend on you. That's what you're making other people feel whenever you reach out and you ask them for help. So just a reminder that asking for help does not make you weak. It does not make you needy. It does not make you a. Mooch or anything like that. It is just something that if we all did better, we would probably be a lot more cohesive. We would probably have a lot less resentment and we would get things done quicker, quite honestly. So hope you appreciate this episode. Hope that you resonate with it. If you struggle with this like I do, I do wanna hear what your thoughts are on it, and if this is something that you feel like you could work on and continue to reshape in your own brain and in your own life. As always, please share with someone if you feel like there's someone in your life right now who you're like, oh, this girl needs to hear this. Or like, Hey girl, I'd be happy to help you out with whatever it is you have going on. Please send it to them. I would appreciate it so much and thank you. Love you.