There are many understandable reasons why you might find it difficult to ask for help when you need it. And you’re far from the only one.
Psychologists have been interested in this question for decades, not least because people’s widespread reluctance to ask for help has led to some high-profile failures, such as the problems that afflicted the Hubble Space Telescope after its launch, or the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill.
These failures and many others were exacerbated by the unwillingness of key players to seek help and advice.
Asking for help takes courage. It involves communicating a need on your part – there’s something you can’t do, or that you don’t know enough about. In other words, you’re broadcasting your own fallibility, which can be uncomfortable.
You might worry about coming across as incompetent. You might have concerns about losing control of, or responsibility for, whatever it is you’re asking for help with. Once someone starts to help, perhaps they’ll take over, or get credit for your earlier efforts.
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Yet another factor that you might be worried about is being a nuisance or inconveniencing the person you go to for help.
If you struggle with low self-esteem or have an anxious attachment style (you find
it difficult to feel safe and secure in your relationships), you might find it especially difficult to reach out for help because you have the added worry of the other person declining your request.
You might see such refusals as implying something negative about the status of your relationship with them. To overcome these difficulties, try to remind yourself that everyone needs help sometimes.
Nobody on the planet knows everything and can do everything all by themselves. And while you might fear coming across as incompetent, there’s actually research that shows that advice-seekers are perceived as more competent, not less.
Other research suggests that help-givers generally come to like a help-seeking person more after they’ve helped them. There are also studies that suggest people are more likely to respond to requests for help than you might think.
Perhaps most encouraging of all is a paper from 2022 by researchers at Stanford University, in California, that involved a mix of contrived help-seeking interactions and asking people to recall times they’d sought help in the past.
The findings showed that help-seekers generally underestimate how willing other people will be to help and how good it’ll make the help-giver feel (for most people, having the chance to help someone is highly rewarding).
So, bear all this in mind the next time you need to ask for help. Also, take care over
who you ask and when you ask them (some consideration on your part will smooth the whole process).
And if someone can’t help right now, avoid taking it personally. They might just be too busy, or they might not feel confident about their ability to help.
This article is an answer to the question (asked by Sally Gardner, via email) 'Why is it so difficult to ask for help?'
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