SHIFT Work: 7 Negative Thoughts That Keep You From Asking for Help
Brilliant women know: Asking for help and support is critical to reaching more people, changing more lives, and growing their wealth.
If you are a brilliant woman that’s been called to serve through entrepreneurship:
- Does your need to avoid rejection override your desire to have real impact that has the power to change lives?
- Is it more important to have a certain image or have genuine influence that allows you to blaze a trail for others?
- Are you setting your pricing based on fear or with the intent to create purposeful income (wealth) that can be used to sow seeds into people, ideas, and movements?
What’s really keeping us from having more impact, influence, and income is our own limited and faulty thinking. I call these thought patterns brilliance blockers. One of my brilliance blockers is the thought pattern that says “I don’t know how.” This comes up when I have to go outside of myself to get something done. Why? Because asking for help is hard for me and asking for what I need, for a long time had been attached to feeling ashamed for having the need in the first place. I survived by doing everything on my own and not trusting or expecting that there would be people who genuinely wanted to help me.
Being self-reliant served me well for a long time. Anything that I could learn and do myself, I did. But as an entrepreneur, trying to maintain total self-reliance is costly.
Many of the trailblazing women I work with have mastered becoming self-reliant too. And it has served them well so far. It may have served you well too in the past. But now that you are ready to play bigger and step more fully into your purpose, being overly self-reliant is one of the barriers to asking for help. It’s time to let go so you and your vision can grow.
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7 Common Negative Thoughts That Keep Women from Asking for Help
There are 7 negative thoughts at the root of overly relying on your self instead of seeking the support and help you need to get your message to more people. These thoughts are rooted in fear and negative emotions from past experiences that have conditioned us to only rely on ourselves. See if any of these examples of negative thoughts are holding you back from being your most brilliant. If I ask for help:
- People will think I am weak.
- I will be taken advantage of.
- There will be strings attached.
- People won’t come through for me.
- People will think I don’t know what I am doing.
- I will be judged and criticized.
- People will look down on me.
With some or all of these negative thought patterns floating through our mind, we tell ourselves the story: People don’t really want to help me. The reality is that people do want to help you. They want to sow into you. They want to shine their brilliance in your direction so that your light increases.
Stop expecting help to be free
To play at the level you want, the help you really need will often require an investment. Yes, that means you may have to pay someone to help you to take your vision to the next level. Don’t get turned off by that. Your vision and the people you have been called to serve are more than worth it.
Some help and opportunities may not cost you anything – I hope you take advantage of every single one of those that come your way. Others will require something of you. It could be faith, risk, time, money, comfort, effort, or a combination of all these highly valued currencies. As my father used to say, “You have to be willing to pay the cost if you want to be the boss.” Are you willing to pay the cost? That’s one thing that distinguishes brilliant women from bright women: Brilliant woman see enough value in their vision to be willing to pay the cost – even if it is uncomfortable.
How being overly self-reliance is keeping you stuck
Avoiding asking for help and getting the support you need means that:
Your impact will be limited: Relying on yourself leads to being ego driven. Fame and being seen a certain way becomes more important than making a real impact on the people you have been called to serve. Don’t let your vision stay stalled because you are too proud or ashamed to ask for help.
Your influence will be weak: When you are overly self-reliant, you train people to think that you don’t need help. You don’t ask for help, they don’t offer help, and your vision stays stagnant. Let your guard down and ask for what you need.
Your income will be a source of strain and frustration: On your own, you can only serve so many people. That means you can only make so much money. Less income, means less you can sow into others. It also means settling for less than the lifestyle you really want. Investing in the right help can mean exponential growth for your business.
Are you ready to SHIFT from overly self-reliant to sustainably supported?
- What do you need to feel safe to ask for the help you need?
- How can you gift that to yourself?
- What is your intuition telling you about the help you need?
- If you were really free, what kind of help you seek out?
- What thoughts do you need to change so you can start asking for help and accept the support you need to start playing bigger and being fully brilliant?
About the Author Tai Goodwin
Tai Goodwin on a mission to help 10,000 women entrepreneurs create more joy and wealth in their life and business. She's the CEO of Aligned + Bankable and creator of the Bankable Brilliance Course. An intuitive business growth strategist and teacher, her specialty is helping clients create bankable business models that allow them to increase their impact and income without burning out. Tai is a former corporate trainer with a master's degree in instructional design and over 20 years of experience designing course, training programs, and certifications. She is also the author of Girlfriend, It's Your Time and founder of Brilliant Business Girlfriends.