How do you decide when it’s time to ask for help?

<p>Asking for help is really much harder than it should be. My panelists and I agreed that we often wait much longer than we should. We struggle. Try to figure it out. Reinvent the wheel and only when we become good and properly stuck do we ask for help.</p> <p> </p> <p>I wondered why that was and we talked about the judgement we fear when we ask for help while at the same time agreeing that when someone asks us for help we don’t judge them. We just help them.</p> <p> </p> <p>(This is a pattern I see when I do team development work with high level sports teams as well.)</p> <p> </p> <p>Another example that came up was the stigma about being in therapy. Josh Coles pointed out that he thinks his generation might be better about it than those before us. But it is certainly still a thing.</p> <p> </p> <p>The Better Conversation Foundation, founded by Simon Coles, was created explicitly to help people become more comfortable asking for help and to give organizations the tools needed to create the psychological safety so people can ask for help.</p> <p> </p> <p>Brandon Mahoney and I are certainly on the same page that we are actively working on getting better at asking for help before we hit a brick wall.</p> <p> </p> <p>I know for me, I hate to see the shock or disappointment on someone’s face when I ask for help. Like they can’t believe I, of all people, don’t have my act together (Yes, even I high performance psychologist can use some help sometimes).</p> <p> </p> <p>What do you think? How do you know when it’s time to ask for help and do you do it?</p> <p> </p> <p>Connect with the panelists:</p> <p>Brandon Mahoney: <a href='https://www.linkedin.com/in/brandoncmahoney/'>https://www.linkedin.com/in/brandoncmahoney/</a></p> <p>Simon Coles: <a href='https://www.linkedin.com/in/sjcoles/'>https://www.linkedin.com/in/sjcoles/</a></p> <p>Josh Coles: https://www.linkedin.com/in/joshua-coles-a79498151/</p> <p>Dr Robyn Odegaard: <a href='https://www.linkedin.com/in/robynodegaard/'>https://www.linkedin.com/in/robynodegaard/</a