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There are 3 common reasons women don’t ask for help, even when they know it would relieve pressure, lessen the overwhelm and bring balance. In today’s episode, I am going to share what is hidden underneath each of these reasons and the first step you need to take if you want to become someone that delegates or asks for help more.
Topics in this episode:
The similarities between asking for help and delegating
Why asking for help feels bad
What is hidden behind the ask that make women shy away
Asking for help does not make you weak
How to change the way you think about asking for help
Show Notes:
I can teach you the tools to interrupt spiraling thoughts that are holding you back from the ambitious and balanced life you want. Click here to learn more and schedule a free call: www.rebeccaolsoncoaching.com/coaching
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Transcript
Intro
There are three common reasons women don't like asking for help, even when they know it would help relieve pressure, lessen the overwhelm, and bring balance.
In today's episode, I'm going to share what is hidden underneath each of these reasons and share with you the first step that you need to take if you want to become someone that delegates or asks for help more. You ready? Let's get to it.
Welcome to the Ambitious and Balanced Working Moms podcast, the place for women who want to balance their ambitious career goals with their life as a mom. If you're looking to feel more confident, decisive, and productive at both work and home, then this is the place for you. I'm your host, Rebecca Olson. Let's get to it.
Hello, working moms. By far, I find with all of my clients that there is one thing in particular that everyone knows would be helpful to them. Everyone knows that this would eliminate some of the stress and the overwhelm. Everyone knows that it would help them move things off of their plate so that they would feel more balanced. Everyone knows that this is an important part of being a leader and a good manager, and frankly, it's required if you're going to continue to move up in your career. Everyone knows this, and yet a good portion of my clients struggle to do it. I'm talking about asking for help, or another way of saying it is delegating.
Now, I know that these two things are not exactly the same, but the results of asking for help and the results of delegating, generally speaking, have the same impact on you. That is, they remove some of the overwhelm, take things off of your plate, they help share the responsibilities or the load, and they create more balance and better prioritization and so on, right?
And although they're not the same thing, I do find that the reasons women struggle to do it is pretty much for the same reasons. And so today on this episode, what I want to do is break down the three reasons why people struggle to ask for help or delegate. And then I want to offer to you the first step in doing it.
People pleasers don’t like to ask for help.
People pleasers sort of get a bad rap for not asking for help and not delegating. And that's usually because their thought is, oh, I don't want to burden them. They're thinking about the other person and how they're asking for help is going to affect them, and likely they think it's going to have a negative effect in some way, and so they don't want to put them in that situation.
I see this all the time with my clients that have really busy workloads. Their whole team, their whole company, have really busy workloads where they themselves quite literally don't have time to get everything done that's on their to do list. And they know their team like their people, the very people that they care about that they manage that could see that they're feeling overworked and overwhelmed, and they don't want to add one more thing to their list. They don't want to be the cause of more overwhelm and more stress on their schedule.
These amazing women, these clients of mine, they don't want to add extra stress to their team by delegating more work to them and asking for help. It feels like their heart is in the right place. It's very self sacrificing of them to just think, oh, I don't want to give that to them. I know they're so stressed and overwhelmed right now, I'll just do it myself. Sounds so good, right? What amazing women that want to do that, right?
This scenario feels so typical. It's hard for me to even come up with some real specific examples. But I really started to think about it, and I came up with one of my clients. Her name is Claire. Claire is a self proclaimed people pleaser. And when she started working with me, she managed a team of around maybe six to eight people, I believe. And her workload was constantly busy, and their company was seeing a lot of growth, and there was just a ton of new business coming in. And her team was always feeling overwhelmed with the amount of things that they had to do.
And as a manager, Claire thought it was her job on some level to shelter her team from the stress and the overwhelm of their workload. She always felt bad when they were working overtime, and she was constantly checking in with them, trying to help them feel less stressed. But the problem is, she would do that by not delegating enough.
And the result was her consistently working overtime, working past the time that she had planned to, usually working on the weekends, even though she didn't really want to, and generally just feeling overworked and out of balance.
Together, we started working on delegating more and asking for more help. Although on the surface, the thought was, I don't want to overburden them, I don't want to add more stress to their plate. That was really just a mask for what the real problem was, which was a fear of inadequacy.
She feared being seen as a bad manager, of being not supportive of her team, of being out of touch with her people. And all of that fear surfaced when she considered delegating and asking for more help.
Fearing what others will think or feel.
I have said this before, I'm sure many times on this podcast, but I want to say it again in this context. Whenever you fear what other people may think or feel, in this case, it's a fear that someone is going to feel overburdened or that they might feel more stress. It's not actually that you fear their emotions, it's that you fear what you're going to feel when they feel whatever it is that they're going to feel. In this case, again, stress and overwhelmed. Does that make sense?
So it's not that you want to protect someone else so that they don't feel stressed and overwhelmed. It's really that you want to protect yourself so that you don't feel inadequate and like you're not a good enough manager, which is what your brain thinks will happen if your people, the team that you manage, feel stressed and overwhelmed because you have delegated to them, it always comes back to us and what we make it mean about us.
So this is the first reason why I see working moms struggle to delegate. They think that they don't want to burden anyone, but really underneath that is what they will make that mean if they do, if someone else feels burdened because of them. And usually what I find is, it's a fear of inadequacy, a fear of being not good enough.
Our brain likes to give you the worst case scenario.
People might get mad or upset at you, you might be the cause of someone else feeling stressed and overwhelmed. And you think that that means that you're not good enough, that you're not a good enough manager even on some level, maybe not even a good enough human being, because who would do that to someone else? I know this feels really extreme because it is. Our brain is giving you the worst case scenario here. Your brain is offering you the 0.1% chance that this would happen and be true.
Another example that comes to mind, a client of mine will call her Nikki. And I remember that Nikki had the hardest time rescheduling meetings when it would require other people to move their schedule around on her behalf, which was pretty much all of the time because this was a very meeting heavy organization and there was like this trickle down effect. When a meeting was moved, it usually required people to accommodate and move other meetings around, which was a logistical nightmare for everyone.
So in this case, asking for help looked a lot like asking people to accommodate her and her schedule needs. And she hated doing that because she hated how she felt when she asked other people to accommodate her. She knew that that was a burden for them, she knew it caused stress and logistical challenges and she made that mean that she wasn't good at her job, that she was burdening her team, that she wasn't a good manager.
It's not about other people being put out, it's what you make that mean about yourself.
And she felt like she shouldn't be adding to people's overwhelm because having people move meetings around for her made her feel that way and she thus had a really hard time doing it. Again, what's important to see here is it's not really about other people being put out, it's what you make that mean about yourself. So that is the first reason.
Asking for help feels like a sign of weakness.
Let's move on to the second reason on why I see working moms struggle to ask for help and delegate. They have the thought they should be able to do this on their own, and the fact that they can't shows that they are inadequate or incapable or inferior in some way. There's kind of an element of needing to prove yourself here. Asking for help shows weakness.
Now, is any of that true? Of course not. If someone asks for help or delegates regularly, are they weak? Does it mean that they're not as good as someone else? No, of course not. But that is what your brain wants to make it mean. And again, it feels really extreme. It's a worst case scenario. But it makes sense that if that is what your brain is thinking, then you would of course, avoid delegating and asking for help because of it if it actually meant that you were weak, that you were inferior, that you were not good enough.
So that's the second reason why I see so many working moms struggle to ask for help is they see it almost like it's a sign of weakness.
The third reason I see working moms struggle to ask for help and delegate is because they ultimately think that they could do it better or faster or more efficiently or just generally it would be easier for them to do it than have to explain it to someone else.
Now, this is a tough one because the higher you move up in your career, the less in the work you are. Meaning you're doing a lot less of the tasks of the job. And instead you're managing the people and the overall goals and vision of the people doing the tasks of the job. Which means that you have to let people do the tasks and they likely won't do them like you do them. And if they're new at them, they certainly will not do them as well or as efficiently as you and you are still being represented by their work.
Even though you're doing less and less of the work and your people are doing more and more of it, you are still the face of the results. Which means other people are doing the work that represents you. And that is just the reality of moving up in your career. Doesn't really matter what industry you're in.
Learning how to let other people represent you is a challenge.
Because if they don't do the work in the same way that you do or they don't work on the same timeline and other people notice and they start associating you with that less than perfect work, then you're going to be seen as inadequate and not good enough and not go to your job. And rather than risk that, instead you don't delegate and you feel stressed out all the time because you try to take it all on and do it all.
This is the reason why I see so many women not delegating to their partner. I often hear the question asked, you know, are women just better at doing household chores and taking care of the kids or managing the logistics of the family. And my answer is no, I don't think we're better, but we sure are more practiced. And that's a really important distinction. Just because your husband or your partner doesn't seem to pick up around the house or clean in the same way that you do it doesn't mean that they can't or they're not good at it. They simply are not practiced in it. And they're not practiced in it because no one's given them the opportunity to do so.
If you and your husband decide that it's his job to get your daughter to soccer and make sure she has her cleats and everything she needs for practices and games and get her there on time and all that stuff, and that's on his plate to do. If he's never been responsible for that before, he's likely going to fail at that at some point. Meaning he's probably going to forget something. Maybe he forgets his daughter's soccer cleats one day and then has to go back for them, which means that his daughter is going to miss half of her practice and be really upset and frustrated.
Failure is necessary for growth.
Well, let me tell you, if that were going to happen, if you let your husband go through the inevitable failure of learning how to do something or how to be responsible for something that they've never taken on, he's going to learn from it. The sheer disappointment of his daughter will likely lessen the chance of it happening again because he never wants to be the cause of that again. He never wants to be the cause of his daughter being so upset again. But he's got to learn from that failure. You have to let him learn from that failure by releasing not reminding him to get the cleats, to not holding on to that responsibility.
If you've decided it's his, or maybe it's quite literally the thoroughness of his ability to sweep or pick up around the house or mop or vacuum, whatever, right? He just might simply have a very different standard than you. And you have two choices in this case to not task him with something that he does not do to the standard at which you want, which will mean more on your plate. Or you could drop the standard.
Getting someone else to do something exactly the way you want it to be done every single time is not something that you are ever in control of.
I hear a lot of, well, if only he would and then you fill in the blank, right?
If only he would help out more around the house.
If only he would clean more.
If only he would take care of the doctor's appointments.
Or if we put this in the context of work, if only my boss wouldn't and then fill in the blank, right?
If only my clients would stop asking for things.
If only we were just a little less busy.
If only there was one more person on our team.
Your spouse, your partner, your boss, your company, your clients, your team, you will never control them and what they do and how they do it, and how well they do it.
So the solution to you feeling more balanced and happy can never be them doing something. And I know I'm talking about this through the lens of why it's hard for some women to ask for help and delegate. And it's because they have the thought no one else can do it quite like me. And that, again, might be true. And other people doing it not quite as well, or not in quite the same way and not representing you in the way that you want - that brings a lot of feelings of inadequacy, right?
Fear of what other people are going to think about you and they're going to think that you're not good enough, you're not good at managing, you're not good at what you do, you don't have good quality of work, that's going to bring up a whole lot of frustration, right?
But really, it's frustrating either way. It's frustrating to have to redo someone's work or take on someone's work because they don't operate at the standard that you want.
It's exhausting to have to constantly be redoing other people's work, but it's also exhausting to have to live with the idea that people's standards aren't quite at your level.
Both are exhausting, but one of them has you doing the work and feeling stressed out and overworking, and one of them does not.
I felt like that was a little bit of a digression, but I hope that brings some helpful perspective to you. Let's come back, though, to the three reasons for not delegating or asking for help - the three main reasons.
Number one, you have the thought that you don't want to burden someone. You don't want to add more overwhelming stress, because doing that will mean that you're not a good manager, that you're inadequate, that you're not good enough in some way.
Number two, you think that you should be able to do it all. And in asking for help, it shows that you can't, that you're in some way inadequate or weak or incapable because you ask for help.
Number three, you have the thought that no one else can do it quite like you at the same level or in the same way or on the same timeline, and you don't want that work to represent you because that would make you feel inadequate and not good enough. And it feels really bad and frustrating to accept someone else's standard or expectation, knowing that you might be capable of more or better again, those things causing feelings of inadequacy and not feeling good enough and not living up to your standard or potential.
It always comes back to the way we're thinking about ourselves.
A couple of things I really want you to notice within these three reasons, the similarity really between all of them is that it always comes back to the way we're thinking about ourselves.
And in all three of these cases, there's a good argument for what's at the bottom of it. What's the true fear and the true reason behind not really wanting to ask for help and delegating is a fear of inadequacy. It's a fear of not being good enough, not being seen as a good manager. Some flavor of that.
It’s only a perspective.
The other thing I want you to notice about all these three things is that they are a perspective. They're all mindsets perspectives, and none of them are ultimately true and none of them are actually false.
The first one is the perspective that someone will be burdened because of you and that you will be no good or inadequate as a result.
The second is the perspective that asking for help is a sign of weakness or a sign of inadequacy.
And the third is a perspective that no one else can do it quite like you. Which means that your only option is to either do it or let someone else misrepresent you.
All of these are just perspectives. They're mindsets. They're a way of thinking about asking for help or delegating. None of them are true. None of them are false. All three are simply a perspective. They are a way of looking at it.
Find a perspective on why you should ask for help or delegate.
So if you want to become someone that asks for help or delegates, your first step is to find a perspective that your brain can get on board with that makes you feel really good about it. You have to find a perspective on why you should ask for help or delegate. And I would encourage you to find really, as many possible reasons that you could think of. As many possible perspectives, whether you believe them or not, right now is a little less important. We just want to show your brain that there is another way to think about asking for help that is not you inevitably being inadequate or a burden or less in some way.
That's just one perspective of 100 or three perspectives of 100 that we covered here today. I made a list of reasons or perspectives to why asking for help is a good thing, and I want to share some of them with you right now. But you really need to come up with your own list. You have to mine your brain for reasons that feel really compelling to you, for perspectives that feel good.
Because when your brain can see that there's a lot of good reasons, a lot of good perspectives, and a lot of ways of thinking about this that don't lead to inadequacy or feeling bad, you're much more likely to do it, so asking for help will become easier for you.
Now, I'm not suggesting that it's going to be easy or that it's going to feel good and natural. I'm just suggesting that it will be easier. Right? You won't resist it with every fiber of your being which you might be doing now. Okay, so let me offer to you some of these other perspectives.
Asking for help could mean that you're highly resourceful.
The first one I want to bring to mind is that asking for help and what it could mean is that you're highly resourceful. It could mean that you know exactly what tasks are most important to you and which ones are more valuable for someone else to be doing, which frees up your time.
It could be that you're really good at managing your resources, meaning your energy and your time and your whole team's time and your whole company's time, for that matter. You're very resourceful.
Or another perspective of asking for help and what it can mean is that it makes you a really great manager. Not just a good one, but a great one, because you're really good at giving your team opportunities to learn, to fail, to become better. You're helping your team grow in their skill sets and their experiences. You're helping your people increase their buy-in to the overall mission of what the team or what the company is doing and why it is doing it. It makes you a great manager.
That's another perspective of asking for help, and what it can mean is that you're not alone. That you have people that love you and care about you and want to share in your burden. It could mean that you are a part of a great team, whether that's at work or just in your marriage. That you have shared goals with other people, shared vision to move toward together.
You are somebody that believes in others.
Or another perspective of asking for help is that you are somebody that believes in others, that you trust them, that you're on their side, that you want the best for them, that you are championing them, that you care about their success and about their growth, that you're an amazing human being because of that.
You're willing to make trade offs.
Another perspective of asking for help could be that you are a great prioritizer, that you know exactly what it is you want and what's most important to you, and you're willing to sacrifice your own comfort in order to have it. You're willing to make trade offs.
It could mean that you are a person that goes after what it is you want. That you're a go-getter, that you're able to manage multiple priorities at the same time.
See how different these perspectives are? We're talking about the same thing. We're talking about what it means to be someone that asks for help and delegates.
The first three perspectives I offered you at the beginning of this episode are the most common three perspectives that hold people back from being able to delegate and ask for help. But there's lots of other perspectives that you could have or really that you could cultivate different ones that are more useful to you. Because ultimately, that's what it's going to take.
You're going to have to show your brain a new perspective and practice it daily.
You're likely not going to believe any of these alternate perspectives without some effort. You're going to have to practice them probably daily. You're going to have to think about what you want asking for help to mean. You're going to have to think about how it benefits you, why it's better than not asking for help. You're going to have to show your brain a new perspective and practice it daily.
This is a lot of the work that I do in coaching with my clients. We uncover negative or not so helpful mindsets that are holding ambitious working moms back. And then I teach them the tools to ultimately change them. I help them to not just learn how to shift perspective in the moment so that there's a lot less spiral thinking, a lot less negative thinking - but I also help them eradicate some of those negative mindsets, those not useful mindsets altogether, so they just stop struggling with them.
Book your FREE breakthrough call now.
And I know that I can help you, too. I would love to connect with you over a free breakthrough call to talk about the negative spiraling mindsets that might be going on for you, how they're holding you back, and exactly what we'll do in coaching to change them.
If you're interested in talking with me about coaching and what that looks like and how this all works, you can reach out to schedule that free call at rebeccaolsoncoaching.com/book. As always, I will put that in the show notes. And Working Moms, let's start asking for help. Let's start delegating. Let's start using our resourcefulness to get more done and to experience the life that we really want. I know you can do it, so let's get to it.
