How To Ask For Help

Society tells us we need to be independent. Don’t rely on others. Don’t trust anyone but yourself. Be self-sufficient. Needing help just slows everything down. Needing help makes you look weak.

I’ve talked again and again about why that’s a terrible and ultimately unsustainable way of life. Human beings are communal creatures. We need each other. As I’ve said before, any number of times, the only way any of us is getting through this life is together.

Particularly as creative people, the things we do, the projects we participate in… We can’t do them alone. You can write a book by yourself, and you could even self-publish, but if you want to make it a book worth reading, you need editors, proofreaders, beta readers, and more. If you want an audience for it, you need people to help you promote it. Even if you’re doing a one-person show, you’re going to need help mounting it, from tech to a venue and more.

Anything you do in this world, you’re going to need help. Which means, if you want to do anything… You’re going to need to ask for help. It’s a daunting prospect. Reaching out to someone else for assistance means being vulnerable. It can mean feeling inadequate. And it can mean risking rejection.

Asking for help is one of the hardest things in the world—even though the reason we do it is to make things easier. But hard as it is, it’s something we all need to do sometimes. Here are a few of the things we tell ourselves that prevent us from asking for help—and how we can overcome those things and ask anyway.

“I Can Do It Myself!”

There’s no need to ask for help. What you’re doing is something you’re perfectly capable of on your own. You’ve done it before, and everything turned out fine. So why should this time be any different? Why would you need someone else’s help?

OK, granted, there are certainly some things you can manage on your own. But ask yourself two questions. First: Is this something you want to be doing, or would you rather be doing something else? And second: When you’ve done this thing for yourself in the past, how well did it turn out? Was it as well as you’d hoped?

In my day job as a content writer, I’ve written any number of blogs for any number of companies that provide services such as marketing or IT. And this is an issue I’ve addressed more times than I can count. “Why should we hire your company, when we can do our own marketing and IT  in-house, for cheaper?”

And the answer I give is this: Because you’re not a marketing or IT company. You’re a law firm, or a medical supplier, or an air conditioning repair service. That’s where your focus should be. The more time and money and resources you put into marketing and IT, the less you have for what you’re actually supposed to be doing. So isn’t it better to outsource these jobs to another company that specializes in those things? Let them do what they do best, so that you can focus on what YOU do best. 

Or, to put it another way: The Broadway musical Merrily We Roll Along has a song called “Franklin Shepard, Inc.” The titular Franklin Shepard is a talented composer who, after finding success, has veered away from music and towards the business side of things, becoming a producer instead. In the song, his friend tells us, “Frank does the money thing very well. But you know what? Other people do it better. And Frank does the music thing very well. And you know what? No one does it better.”

You may be able to survive by doing it on your own, but often, if you really want to thrive, you need to ask for help. When working on a project, find the things that are weighing you down, the things that are taking you away from the part of the work you’d rather be doing. And find the things that would just make the project better if someone else handled them. Then, ask for help.

“I SHOULD Be Able to Do It Myself!”

There’s something you’re struggling with. Some task you can’t quite accomplish, some problem you can’t find a solution for, something you just can’t seem to get right. You look around you. Other people never seem to have this problem. You see people working on similar projects, or dealing with similar situations, and they’re getting through it just fine. If they can do it, why can’t you? Does not being able to do it make you deficient in some way? Are you lagging behind everyone else?

It feels like asking for help would be admitting that you’re not as good as them. That you’re not as smart, not as talented, or that you’re not working as hard. Clearly the solution is just to buckle down and drive yourself harder. Pull yourself up by your bootstraps, and do on your own this thing that everyone else can do on your own.

I’ll let you in on a secret: They’re not doing it on their own. They’re getting help and support from the people around them. And whatever you’re struggling with, other people are struggling with too. It’s just that struggles are a lot less visible from the outside than they are from the inside.

And those who have mastered the thing you’re struggling with and can do it with ease… They struggle with other things. In fact, there are probably things that you do that they look at and think, “Oh, they make it look so easy! Why can’t I do that?”

So go to those people who look like they know what they’re doing and ask them how. Maybe they’ll be willing to help you. Maybe they’ll be able to suggest someone else to help you. Maybe they’ll be able to provide some guidance or tips that will help you be able to do it yourself—the same tips and guidance that someone else once gave to them. Or maybe it will turn out that they’re just as clueless as you. But at least you’ll be clueless together, which is better than being clueless alone.

“I Don’t Want to Be a Burden!”

This is one of the biggest obstacles there is to asking for the help you need. People are busy with their own things. You don’t want to pile your stuff on top of theirs, or make your stress into their stress. You worry that forcing people to take time out of their lives to do things for you will make them resent you.

I’ve talked before about why this argument doesn’t hold water. Suffice it to say, you’re not forcing anyone to do anything. They always have the right to say no, and rather than worrying about other people’s stress, you need to trust them to set their own boundaries. And most of the time, people are glad to lend a hand.

But let’s say, for the sake of argument, that your project is a burden on the person you’ve asked. It does happen. Some people are bad at setting boundaries, have a hard time saying no, and end up taking on projects they don’t have the capacity for. 

That’s still not a good reason for trying to do things on your own, instead of asking for help. It’s actually a good argument for asking for MORE help. Don’t just ask one person. Ask as many as you can. The more people you can get on board, the more you can spread out the burden, and the less stress there is for everyone.

And if you can get the right group together, find the right dynamic, it won’t be a burden at all! It will be a fun and rewarding experience that you can all share! (Or, at the very least, you can all gripe to each other about what a burden this project is, which helps to lessen the burden.)

“I Don’t Know Who to Ask!”

OK, you’ve resolved to bite the bullet and ask for help with whatever thing your current project is lacking or struggling with. Great! But who do you know who has the talent, the time, and the resources to provide what you need?

Sometimes it’s simple. For my projects, the thing I tend to need most is actors. But I live in L.A., where there are actors literally everywhere. Walk into any coffee shop in Hollywood and, if you hang around long enough, you’ll find enough actors to stage a full-scale production of Joseph and the Amazing, Technicolor Dreamcoat. (Caveat: Unless you are very, very charismatic, or have a lot of money, most of them probably will not sign on to such a production when it’s offered to them by a total stranger they met in a coffee shop. But they are there.)

Fortunately, I’m also part of several different local theater groups and have a number of friends I can go to when I’m casting a show. There are also plenty of friends I have with other talents, whom I can call upon if need be. Specialty makeup effects? An old timey 1940s microphone? A cello solo? I’ve got friends I can go to for all of those things, in a pinch.

But what if I need someone to help me make puppets? As I’ve mentioned in previous articles, I love working with puppets and have some really cool, elaborate puppet projects planned for the future. As I’ve also mentioned… My puppet making skills are terrible. They’re useful for certain things, but if I want to stage a puppet project with some real production value, I’m going to need help.

In fact, I staged a fairly elaborate puppet project in December, as part of the Spirit OnStage annual Christmas show, and I ran into this very issue. I planned three different songs involving puppets, all of which required characters that were beyond my own, limited talents. I knew from the beginning that I would need to ask for help. But whom would I ask? Whom did I know who could build puppets?

I started with who I did know: people with similar talents who might be able to lend a hand. My friend Ron, who is an invaluable member of Spirit OnStage, can build pretty much anything, and has furnished our shows with props, costumes, sets, and more. He didn’t necessarily have experience building puppets, but I knew that he could, if he put his mind to it.

So I asked him, and he agreed. Then I showed him what I had in mind… And it became clear it wasn’t something he could do on his own. This project would require not just puppets, but a lot of puppets. A lot of very specific, Christmas-themed puppets. Building them all from scratch was something he’d certainly be capable of, but it just wasn’t something he could do in the timeframe we had. Not while also balancing acting in the show, his duties at our church, his family responsibilities, and, oh yeah, holding down a fulltime job. To pull this off, we would need more help than that.

So how did I find whom to ask for help? I asked. I went to Facebook and posted, “Who among my friends knows how to build puppets?” It turns out, there are a fair few. One friend in particular makes, buys, and collects them. He has a whole box full of puppets of all shapes and sizes, which he loaned me for the show. Several of them were perfect as-is. Others needed only minor tweaks and (non-permanent) alterations to go from happy children puppets to happy elf puppets. And so we found ourselves with enough puppets to do all three numbers and make them look great, without having to build any of them from scratch.

And what if I hadn’t had that friend, or he hadn’t been so generous with his collection? Not only did I have other friends who were willing to help, several of my friends had recommendations for other people I could ask: their friends and people they were connected with, who had experience with this sort of thing and might be willing to lend a hand.

This is why it’s so important to be part of a community. I’ve had some good experiences putting requests for assistance up on Facebook, but I’ve also had some duds. It’s a good place to start, but it doesn’t always yield the results you’re looking for. However, if you’re part of a more specialized creative community, full of people doing similar things, then finding people to help you gets easier. And fortunately for us, we’re all part of just such a community.

Epiphany has so many different people with so many different talents, whom you can reach out to. So many people who are willing to help with whatever you’ve got going on. And if there’s not someone in the community who has or can do what you’re looking for… Chances are, there’s someone who knows who can, and can connect you. All you need to do is take that first step, by reaching out and asking.

“I Don’t Know How to Ask”

So you’ve made the decision to ask for help, and you’ve identified a person whom you think would be able to provide that help. How do you approach them? Even if it’s a friend, asking for favors isn’t easy, and it can feel like imposing, even if it’s not.

Start with a compliment. Let them know how much you admire their talents. How much you enjoy working with them—or would like to work with them. Let them know why you’re coming to them, specifically, and why they’d be good for what you have in mind. It’s not just to butter them up. It puts the favor you’re asking them in a positive light. If you approach it from an angle of, “I’m so sorry to bother you, what I’m asking is such an imposition, but maybe if it’s not too much trouble…” then you’re setting yourself up for failure.

The key, in my experience, is to try to get them as excited about what you’re doing as you are. Start with what you like and admire about them. Then tell them what you’re doing and why you’re passionate about it. Then tell them why you think they’d be passionate about it too. Let them know what you need from them, why you think they’d be a good fit, and why it’s a project worth being part of.

“What If They Say No?”

No matter how good a fit the project is, no matter how well you ask, sometimes people are going to say No. A lot of people will tell you that it’s not a big deal.

“The worst they can say is no! Just shrug it off and move on!”

But you know what? A No can hurt. A No when you were hoping for a Yes is, at minimum, disappointing. A No from someone you were really hoping to work with, can be a serious blow. And a No when you’re getting to the end of your list and not sure who else you can ask, can be devastating.

But it’s going to happen sometimes. There’s no way around it. All you can do is roll with the punches.

If it’s a particularly difficult No to hear, then don’t be afraid to take a moment to feel whatever emotions you’re feeling. Sad? Angry? Desperate? Uncertain? Let it happen. Process it. Do what you need to do.

And then regroup. This person didn’t work out, so what are your other options? Go back to the community. See if there are any leads on others who might have the time and the talents for your project. Start the process over. Find more people you can ask for help, and keep asking until someone gives you a Yes.

Also, understand that a No for now isn’t necessarily a No for all time. Sometimes people are just busy. Sometimes schedules don’t mesh. Sometimes people genuinely want to work with you, but they’ve got something else on their plate—this time.

If you pay close attention, you can generally tell the brush-off, “not interested” No’s from the genuinely disappointed, “I would if I could” No’s. If it’s the former, there’s not a lot you can do. You and your projects aren’t for everyone. But if it’s the latter… Keep them in mind. Next time you’ve got something you need help with, move their name to the top of the list. You’ve already got their interest. And asking is a lot easier the second time.

Asking for help doesn’t come easily for a lot of us. But like most things in life, getting better at it just takes practice. Look for things to ask for help with. Look for people whom you think would be willing. Big things, small things, close friends, casual acquaintances… Just keep asking. Not only does it get easier the more often you do it, but the more people you ask for help, the wider your circle becomes, and the better equipped you are to get the help you need for other things down the line.

And of course, be willing to help others as well. Look for opportunities to help your friends and people in your various circles with the things they need, even if it’s something you wouldn’t ordinarily think to do. That’s how connections are made. That’s how communities are built. And ultimately, that’s how we all get the help we need.