“I feel icky doing this…”

This week I asked close friends and family to help me figure out what my personal brand is. I created this short survey to find out.

Coming up with a survey was easy. The act of asking for a favor or help was hard. But why is that?

I feel like I don’t deserve to be helped. Not because I do not need help but because I’m not worth helping. *Wait wait before you start feeling sorry and stuff, hear what I have to say first.

**Context**

At work, that’s what I do: help others find the answers to technical questions they don’t understand.

However, helping becomes annoying when I get asked the simplest questions. Questions, I think, they can figure out on their own if they tried a little harder.

It’s annoying because it distracts me from focusing on my own task.

But what’s more annoying is that they don’t even try to figure out the answer themselves. They take a “short-cut” by asking me a question- I do the research. They wait for an answer. Makes sense. Don’t work hard, work smart right?

However, what they fail to realize is that I have some stuff I need to finish as well. And if you have a number of them asking for help, well, you almost do not have much time left to finish your own work. Their work prospers while yours suffer.

This makes me become reluctant at helping.

***

That’s the context. So now the table’s turned: I need help.

Now I see myself as one of those people that annoy me. That right there makes it hard for me to ask for help. Before asking, I need to ask myself first: Did I even try to find the answer on my own? What the hell did I even do to move forward? Why would people help? What’s in it for them?

I had to battle with those questions before I can send a text message saying, “I need help”.