Human beings can be so weird sometimes.
Even when we need help and we are actively aware of it, sometimes we will run away from it. Maybe we will refrain from asking for help because we’re afraid of being judged for being weak, or because we feel like we “should” be able to just get better.
But that’s not how it works. Sure, sometimes a pain will go away by itself, but at what cost? And what if it doesn’t?
If we were cut by a knife, we don’t just shrug it off and hope it doesn’t get infected. We go to the hospital. Yet, when we get symptoms like burnout or overwhelm, when we get signals that we can’t sleep or eat properly, when our relationships start to struggle, we ignore it and hope it goes away.
I find that entrepreneurs are particularly guilty of this, which is extra strange because we of all people KNOW how important it is to not try to do everything by ourselves. Yet it seems like we are the ones who are most likely to shrug it off and wear our wounds like some strange badge of honor. Yes, I *have* been stabbed and *no*, I haven’t seen a doctor. Are you impressed yet?
Insane.
Generally, I find there are three main fears that keep us from asking for help:
- Deserving fear. Usually sounds like “I’m fine.”
This is an extremely common fear that lives deeplyin the ego. See, on the surface, we tell ourselves things like “I’m not doing too bad.” or “oh I’m tough enough to get over this” when in reality, we’ve been low-key depressed for the past few months, we’re self medicating with netflix, alcohol, and masturbation, and we’re wondering why we can’t seem to get a healthy relationship going or get out of our rut and get our productivity back.
This is the fear that tells us “there are other people who have it worse” or “I don’t really need to trouble anyone else for this, it’s not a big deal”.
This is an egoic fear — meaning it really comes from a fear of judgement. It isn’t really “I don’t really need anyone else” but “I’m afraid people will think I’m weak if I ask for or receive help.” underneath.
How to get over it? Explore if it’s true.
- Who will judge you for being weak?
- Will they ACTUALLY judge you for being weak for asking for help?
- Do they judge you for going to a doctor? Have they ever asked for help before?
- Even if they do, does that affect your life negatively?
- And if so, can you survive the consequences?
Often times these kinds of egoic projections are resolved once we examine it.
2. Process fear. Usually sounds like “it’s a lot of work’”.
I’m going to get this out of the way — sometimes, growth is uncomfortable. Going to the gym is uncomfortable. Doing the work is uncomfortable. It’s just the way it is and if we can’t keep sugarcoating it.
But the discomfort is the point. The act of breaking free from the cocoon is what gives the butterfly the strength to fly. The feeling of fatigue and healing from after a workout is what builds muscle. Discomfort isn’t just a necessary part of the journey, it IS the purpose.
So yeah, you’ll probably be uncomfortable. But you’ve been uncomfortable before. If anything, I’d argue that the pain from not getting help is more uncomfortable, and it might get worse the longer it goes on.
There’s also something to be said about owning and embracing discomfort. Books like Grit talk about this in detail, but I’m just a big believer that we should come to enjoy discomfort for the sake of it. There’s something deeply satisfying about the process of getting through discomfort, like the grind of climbing a mountain — not for the view at the top, but for the actual climb itself. Or like the feeling of your foot hitting the pavement when going for a run — the discomfort becomes addictively comfortable, ironically.
3. Outcome Fear. Usually sounds like “But it might not even work.”
This is a tough fear, not because at the surface we’re afraid of something failing — we’ve survived things not going our way all our lives — but because it suggests that failure is inevitable. It suggests that we can’t be fixed because we’re too broken.
Which of course, isn’t possible. Human emotions aren’t plates, we don’t break. By not taking action we can definitely get worse, but on an emotional level, we can also get better.
The fear of wasted time and resource is a sense of defeatism — that effort will be wasted, we’ll have looked stupid, so better not try at all. It’s absolute rubbish.
Look — I can’t promise you that the first resource you go to is going to magically solve everything. As a matter of fact, statistically it’s probably going to help, but not be the be-all-end-all. If a baby starts walking and falls after the first attempt, do you just accept that the baby is never going to ever walk? Do you just say “Oh well, looks like you’re just going to be crawling for the rest of your life”?
Of course not. Growth takes time and healing takes time. It also takes repeated tries, not because you can fail (as a matter of fact, every failure is just a mini lesson in the curriculum), but because you can’t fail if you haven’t given up yet.
Fears are normal. It keeps us from getting into tough situations where we get hurt, but the fear that stems from our ego is usually not based on reality. The sooner we can let go of those fears — through confronting it, examining it, and challenging it — the sooner we can start getting better.
