This weekend was a good lesson for me, a reminder of the importance of asking for help.
I have an independent spirit, with a good dose of pride as well. No, I don’t think I’m better than everyone else. I just think I know the best way to do things. (See, that’s not so bad. Um, right?) Add to that an unwillingness to “inconvenience” others.
As a result, I don’t like to delegate. I think my life will be so much easier if I just do everything myself. No reason to bother anyone else with my silly, little tasks. After all, they won’t do the tasks the way I think they ought to be done.
For a small business owner, this is not a good way to operate. Frankly, it’s not a good way to stay in business, either (although it IS a good way to have a nervous breakdown).
I like to think that I have improved my willingness to ask for help. So many friends have supported me and helped me as my business has been getting started. I’ve become willing to ask for help with proofing my store’s website, finding models for my product pictures, and figuring out accounting principles.
Last Friday, though, I found myself in a conundrum — I needed to prepare for a house guest, wash dishes and laundry, cook food for a potluck, and get organized for two weekend shows with ghia. I needed to be at a friend’s house (which was 30 minutes away) by 7pm that night, potluck dish in hand. At 6:30 I was buried in tortilla mix the kitchen, and my house guest’s bed wasn’t made. I hadn’t even thought about what I needed to do for the craft shows on Saturday and Sunday. I arrived at my friend’s house almost an hour late.
By Saturday morning I was a mess, and my time for preparing for the shows was running out. I got up early and started working, letting my husband sleep because “I didn’t want to bother him.” I loaded the cars myself and arrived at the show with only 20 minutes to set up. Thirty minutes into the show, I was struggling to construct the tent for my booth.
Saturday evening, after the show, I was depressed and exhausted and just wanted to hide from the world.
Looking back, I wish I had asked for help starting Thursday night. My revised plan of action would have looked something like this:
1) Ask husband for help with household chores. He’s always very willing to help, and does a great job.
2) Ask grocery store for help — figuratively — by getting pre-made ingredients for the potluck meal instead of working from scratch.
3) Ask God for help in maintaining my sanity and reason. I really didn’t need to scour the bathrooms on Friday, but at the time I sure thought I did.
4) Ask house guest for help with making their bed and preparing their sleeping area.
5) Ask husband (again) for help with loading the car. That would have taken him 5 minutes and saved me 15 or 20.
6) Ask a fellow vendor at the craft fair for help setting up my tent. A lovely woman did offer to help me, and I foolishly said no, believing I could do it all myself and unwilling to accept help from a stranger.
I hope I learned from my experience, because I don’t want another weekend like that. However, while the knowledge is in my head, I don’t know if I truly believe it yet. But if I can ask for help just one time when I otherwise would not, then I have improved. Progress, not perfection!
Reading that made me feel stressed out! Asking for help is a good thing at times, a good lesson for everyone.
Your weekend was like a perfect storm for your personality. I can say that because I frequently react in exactly the same fashion….and learn exactly what you did. 🙂
Here’s to a helping hand from time to time….
All of us feel like we can do it all by ourselves… or hate to impose on someone else…
You’ve learned from the world’s worst (Me)about asking for help…
I’m always there if you need help…
Dad
Great post.
One of the hardest lessons I’ve ever learned is that it ISN’T a sign of weakness to ask for help.
Took me 40 years. You are brighter than Me. 🙂
It is so easy to GIVE help and so hard to accept it, much less ask for it. I’ve had similar humbling experiences. Thanks for the quesadillas. They were awesome!!!
As one of my friends once told me, when asked if you need some help, just “shut up and say ‘yes.'” Wise woman. And I know how to make a bed and scrub a bathroom, so use your friends wisely! Hugs.
Might have to link to this on MY blog. 🙂 Guess why i would need to do that… 😉
I too suffer from an inability to ask for help. And the same inability to accept help when it is offered in turn.
Reading the events of your couple of days was exhausting, not to mention what it must have been like to live through it!
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