DON’T WORRY I’VE GOT IT OR HAVE I?

 

One night, I woke up at 2 am and tweeted, “how do you ask for help?” and the two people who responded said, “just ask.” 

It seemed like a straightforward solution, but for someone who doesn’t even know that option is available, it is not as straightforward as it looks.

How do you know that you need help?

For those of you, who have the skill of knowing when to ask for help, who to ask for help, and how to ask for help, please come and answer this question because it’s not a small joke.

Today I woke up thinking about all the things that I have found unnecessarily hard over the past years and how it could have been way easier if only I had asked for help. I would make great plans, start the journey and then end up disappointed because I would hit a wall, and I wouldn’t know how to go over it, you know, all by myself. I would stand and stare at the giant wall and then, with tears in my eyes, throw my hands up in the air in defeat and walk away, hoping that I will summon some superpowers to fly over it someday.

Yes, I can be dramatic sometimes (🙄)

When the someday comes, and if I am lucky, I would have stumbled on some new information which would help me climb over the wall, only to see a mountain on the other side (hahaha jokes). If I am not that lucky, with the sun in my eyes and dirt on my face from trying to climb again, I say adios and walk away.

There are a million and one things that have gone this way for me. I don’t think that it was because I wanted to prove a point, but I didn’t want to be a bother. 

People will legit say, “Renette, let me know how I can help.” 

I would say okay with no intention of ‘imposing’ and continue struggling.

Someone once offered to pay for a bead-making class for me when I started my bead business, and I declined the offer. It’s needless to say that it didn’t thrive because I didn’t have the necessary skills, and it just stopped existing because I gave up.

If you are like me, you probably like to help others, but you don’t want to burden people with your problems. You feel like you got it, and there are other ways of finding solutions to your challenges (ahem, YouTube). You also understand that people are dealing with their issues, and you have been depending on yourself all this while. Sigh

Growing up, I spent most of my time alone (don’t cue the sad music please). I found ways of keeping myself entertained, learnt new things, made a lot of mistakes, picked myself up, and dried my tears. Unfortunately, I never grew out of it when I began to make new friends and convert some of them to family. I was pouring old wine into new wineskins.

Lately, I have learnt that I can ask for help. That I don’t have to figure everything out myself, that I can learn from other people’s mistakes so that I don’t have to make them, that there are people who love me enough to stop everything that they are doing to sort me out and that more people are rooting for me than against me.

It’s pretty weird looking back at all this because I have a friend that I will call O-P who used to complain about my weird ‘independent’ ways, and I didn’t understand. 

There is an African proverb that says, “If you want to go far, go alone but if you want to go fast, go together.” and I think that this is self-explanatory.

Another thing that I have also learnt is that you have to trust the people who trust you. They trust you because you are dependable, kind, have a good heart, etc. and you not trusting them says a lot. I am not saying that tell them everything that happens to you, but you should also reciprocate.

Asking for help can be very hard, especially when you are in the habit of saying that you have got it. This year I made some major decisions, which would have been easier if I had realized that I could ask certain people to hold my hand; people who would have been very willing to see me succeed.

 If you don’t believe how bad it was, my former boss told me to learn how to reach out for help at my exit meeting.

If you are interested in learning this skill, here, here, here, and here are a few resources that you can read to gain more information. I will also ask you not to undervalue TikTok and YouTube because that is where you get to hear real-life experiences from everyday people like you and me.

I am glad that I have learnt this lesson. I know that I don’t have to do it all by myself, that I no longer have to be a one-man army, and that I have an opportunity to become a better person.

I know that it can be hard to build new habits, but with time and perseverance, you can make it. You should put in a conscious effort not to give up on the days that you fail and be patient with yourself. Celebrate the small wins, know that you won’t get it 100% all the time. Remember that even if it is two steps forward and one step back, it is still 1 step forward.

So cheers to forming new habits, making bold moves, and strengthening our relationships.