A couple of weeks ago I was working on a “landing page” on my website for a retreat I am hosting in the fall. It is very close to my heart and I had been working on the page days—adding content, removing content, stopping and starting. Finally, after about two weeks, I had most of the content hammered out.
My husband is a family physician, like me, and the retreat I am hosting is for medical providers, so having the input of another physician would have been really helpful. I mentioned to my husband that he could take a look at it if he had time. That was on a Thursday. I didn’t get a response (to my admittedly very subtle nudge) so I just kept plugging along.
Three days later, my husband came into the kitchen with a sheaf of papers in his hand.
“What’s that?” I asked.
“It’s your landing page,” he said, sitting down at the kitchen table. “I have a few comments, if that’s okay.”
“Sure,” I said, sitting down next to him.
“I numbered the paragraphs, “ Tom said, showing me the first page that he had marked up. “You need to move this paragraph,” he said, pointing, “because it interrupts the flow of the page.” He pointed to the fourth paragraph.
“Okay,” I said, “I see that.”
Then I burst into tears.
“What’s wrong?” Tom said, staring at me.
“This is just what I needed,” I finally said, still crying.
“I’ll just show you the rest in a few minutes,” Tom said, after waiting a minute for me to stop crying.
Later, after I got it together and Tom showed me the rest of the pages he’d printed out, I had some time to think and I realize I need to change a few things about the way I ask for help.
Change #1. I need to actually ask for help. In this situation, getting some help was so important that I burst into tears of relief when someone offered it. So why didn’t I just say, “This is really important to me. Could you look at this?”
Change #2. Figure out why I don’t want to ask for help. What am I making it mean if I ask for help? That I’m incompetent? That I’m needy? That I’m human? Why, yes, I am human. We all need help from time to time. I’m okay with that (now that I’ve thought about it!)
Change #3: Ask the right person for help. I was so overwhelmed when Tom gave me feedback because he is part of my target audience. I had asked some coaching friends for feedback, which was helpful as some of them are more experienced that I am at hosting retreats, but Tom could see my landing page as a potential participant would.
Where in your life are you afraid to ask for help? What are you making “asking for help” mean?
You can find the landing page for my Passionate Providers Retreat by clicking here. 🙂