I have always wondered that if asking for help was a sign of weakness. But as I go through life and its experiences, I feel asking for help is not a sign of weakness but a sign of courage and strength. Sometimes, we are so self consumed that we feel like asking for help is a sign of weakness. However, today I want to convince you that asking for help is not a sign of weakness but a sign of strength. So firstly why should we think about asking for help? Why should we even ask for help when faced with a difficulty.
Now when we face with a difficulty, we might be trying out solutions but there might be a blindspot that we just don't know. But when we talk to people, ask for help and talk about the possible solutions we can understand the true depth of the problem and once the depth of the problem is understood we would be able to solve the problem much more easily. We all know the great Sachin Tendulkar, in his book Playing it my way, he said that there was a technical problem with his cricket and it was explained to him by a waiter serving to him in a hotel. This certainly was a blind spot to the God of Cricket as well and it's the waiter who knew about this knowledge and gave that knowledge to Sachin. After this Sachin was able to correct and improve his technique, so if even the great Sachin Tendulkar can have blindspots, you too can have right.
Secondly, when we ask for help we come to the acceptance and the humility to say that not everyone knows everything and it's in fact impossible to know everything. Yes there are times when you want to work in depth and not talk to anyone but once that time is over, asking for help will only benefit you and you will only learn stuff when you ask for help.
When we ask for help, the first thing we are proving there is that you are willing to learn. So many times when we reach a certain position within the company, it's very easy to have bloated ego and not ask questions. In fact, asking questions and help is a way to show that you are still human and you are still willing to learn something new. Sometimes there would be a time where an office colleague who is junior to you, might know something more about a topic than you would, so during such time we should always ask questions, seek help and learn. The idea is to focus on learning, not on proving.
The second point as shown in the diagram is that it shows that you are humble. Which is that you are not arrogant or overly proud. In fact being humble makes you approachable as well. One of the greatest players of Indian Cricket, Rahul Dravid, has always been humble and have shown qualities of humility and patience in the hardest of times. Another cricketing example is that of Virat Kohli. People say aggression is the quality of Virat Kohli and that's true, aggression does get him motivated to play his best game. However, not many people know that when it comes to his batting and his batting technique, he is willing to learn from anyone or anything. When he failed a few matches in an England tour, Virat called Sachin and asked him what should he do to improve his weakness of outside the off stump deliveries. How to play them, Sachin being Sachin did advise him. Moreover, what this shows is that Virat was willing to learn and adapt rather than calling himself the Goat.
The third point as we all know is it gives you perspective and access to new ideas. Like I said previously, we all have our blind spots. No matter how experienced you are in your field, there might be certain things that we have a blind spot on. For an example, you might be great at back end when it comes to software engineering, but you might not be as good on the front end or the vice versa. During such times, asking for help and clarifying doubts will help you understand the other subject a bit better. So when we learn something out of our comfort zone, that's real growth right.
It saves you time and energy. This statement is obvious, when you do everything on your own, you won't have the time and energy to do big things. However, when you handover certain things to someone else, they will be able to do it. So what's more important to understand is that it also helps you save your own time and your own energy.
When you ask for help you are showing the other person your own vulnerability. This makes you more human and trustworthy as well. Your credibility is defined by what you complete and eventually when you complete certain things, you will be more and more credible. The point here is that you should not have any shame when it comes to asking for help. It's only going to benefit you.
Now the question is how do we ask people for help? Now naturally we all know that sometimes when asking for help, we need to strike out a balance. Firstly, your question should not be very easy that if you google something yourself, you will be able to find out the answer. That's not the kind of help, neither do you want to ask something too broad, where you are almost asking the other person to complete your whole project. No that's also not the right way. The best way to ask for help is to be as specific as possible. Here is a good way to ask for help :
First of all you need to find the right person in the company. Once you find someone, don't ramble your question, rather just write down your question and that will clarify your own thinking as well. Once you have written down the question, show them or tell them what you have tried so far. Once you tell them what you have shared so far, share your updates and thank the other person for help.
But as I said the most important thing is don't be ashamed to ask for help.
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