Help for Finding Help

Things don't always go the way we want them to. Sometimes it feels like Life is a sequence of frustrations punctuated by just enough successes to encourage you to get out of bed in the morning. And sometimes there aren't even enough successes for that. Your youngest child is ill again. You're passed over for promotion — again. The roof has developed another leak. Your boss claims credit for your idea, and blames you when her misguided implementation of it implodes. Your best work goes unnoticed because the features that depend on it got cut. Your bonus this year will be half what you were expecting — and you already spent both halves. And on and on.

When things don't go our way, many of us just tough it out. We don't ask for help. We don't seek a trusted ear to tell our troubles to. We don't seek support.

That's unfortunate, because as one of my teachers taught me, everything is easier with support. When we have support, we have access to different perspectives. When our focus has been our frustrations, support gives us the energy we need to see our successes more clearly. Support gives us the tools we need to deal with our frustrations more effectively. Life is more fun. Joy is possible.

And for many of us, support is easy to find: a spouse, trusted friends, counselors, clerics, mentors, coaches, or therapists. And there are specialists, too: for legal matters, lawyers; for health, there are doctors, dentists, chiropractors, physical therapists, personal trainers, or nutrition coaches; for money and debts, there are financial planners and credit counselors. And there are groups and networks for writing, reading, job search, therapy, weight control, and substance abuse.

So why do so many choose not to seek support? Even more puzzling: why do so many not even realize they have choices? It's a knot many of us never figure out how to untie. If you want to learn how to untie this knot, here are some of the conditions that keep the knot tied up tight.

Lack of information

Example thinking: "I don't know about support or how to get it;" "I don't see how that will help;" "I don't believe it will help;" "It's hopeless. Nobody can help me with this."

These messages-to-self can be effective blocks to any action. They can even function to prevent acceptance of wise advice. Someone who's thinking this way is potentially on a trajectory to an even more vulnerable place. If you're thinking this way, ask yourself: "If I don't do something, how does this end?" The answers to that question are pretty grim. Do something.

Lack of encouragement

Some people don't get enough encouragement to seek support. We depend on family, friends, and others we trust to encourage us to seek the right kind of help if we don't seek it on our own.

If you're If you're not connected to many
other people right now, a good
time to fix that would be right nowgoing through life alone, or with few friends, and things are OK right now, that's great. But you've probably hit some speed bumps in the past. Wouldn't it have been nice to have received encouragement to seek support in those times? If you're not connected to many other people right now, a good time to fix that would be right now.

Taboos

There are taboos associated with seeking — or even accepting — support. Some kinds of support are stigmatized: psychotherapy and counseling are examples. Some of us have been raised to be tough: "I must always play the cards I've been dealt, and I must figure something out all by myself." And many of us have been raised — and taught in school — that we must "do it on our own." Seeking support is cheating.

Seeking or accepting support isn't cheating, because Life isn't an academic test. Life presents challenges. It's up to us to respond to those challenges as best we can with whatever resources and support we can marshal, including support from other people. There are taboos prohibiting some kinds of support, but they're only taboos, not laws. Just remember: the time might come for you to provide support to someone else. That's the deal.

Feelings of inadequacy

When we violate a taboo that we've fully internalized, we can experience feelings of shame or inadequacy. Example: "I should be able to get through this on my own without anyone's support." Another: "I don't want to seek a therapist because if I make a claim on my insurance it might get back to my employer." Or the ever popular: "What a loser I am."

These feelings are of our own making, though the template for producing them probably isn't. Because we make these feelings, we can unmake them. Learning to recognize these feelings as consequences of the internalizations of somebody else's templates is a good first step.

Distrust

Another block is lack of trust. Getting support from someone, even a professional like a therapist or lawyer, might require disclosure of the details of your situation. You'll have to find someone you trust if you want effective assistance with whatever fix you're in.

Even after you find someone you think you can trust, the problem you face can be more complicated than you now realize. When your attorney or therapist or counselor or coach pursues the issue wherever it leads, you might experience a sense of trepidation. Trust your adviser/supporter. Chances are good that he or she is on the right track. Courage.

Lack of services

Support services of all the types listed above exist in large metropolitan areas. But in smaller cities and towns, some services might be difficult to find. Or the people you do find might not have sufficient relevant experience.

Still, the telephone is available almost everywhere. I personally have coached people over the telephone in many cities and towns in the United States, and several in Europe. If you can't find the help you need in your town, you can surely find it on the Internet, and then get the advice you need by telephone. Not quite as personal as face-to-face, but it does work.

Lack of resources

Some forms of support cost money — money you might not have. But some forms of support are available without charge. If they fit, exhaust the free ones first.

For those forms of support that do cost, you can still ask for discounts or waivers of fee. Of course, asking for that might violate a taboo, or create feelings of inadequacy, or bump up against any number of the items in this list. Funny how self-sustaining this knot is. It defends itself from being untied!

The defining characteristic of a knot is that pulling on its "free ends" tightens the knot. A personal problem can be a knot, too, in the sense that if the problem is difficult enough that we need support to resolve it, the problem can also make seeking support difficult, and so the problem persists. When stuck, consider the possibility that the problem you're stuck in might be keeping you from seeking support.  Top    Next Issue

Love the work but not the job? Bad boss, long commute, troubling ethical questions, hateful colleague? This ebook looks at what we can do to get more out of life at work. It helps you get moving again! Read Go For It! Sometimes It's Easier If You Run, filled with tips and techniques for putting zing into your work life. Order Now!

Your comments are welcome

About Point Lookout

Thank you for reading this article. I hope you enjoyed it and found it useful, and that you'll consider recommending it to a friend.

Point Lookout is a free weekly email newsletter. Browse the archive of past issues. Subscribe for free.

Support Point Lookout by joining the Friends of Point Lookout, as an individual or as an organization.

Do you face a complex interpersonal situation? Send it in, anonymously if you like, and I'll give you my two cents.

Related articles

More articles on Emotions at Work:

What's So Good About Being Laid Off?

Layoffs during the holiday period of November 15 through January 15 are far more common than you might think. Losing your job, or fearing that you might, is always difficult, but at this time of year it's especially helpful to keep in mind that the experience does have a bright side.

The Fundamental Attribution Error

When we try to understand the behavior of others, we often make a particularly human mistake. We tend to attribute too much to character and disposition and too little to situation and context. When we seek a better balance, we can adopt a more accepting view of events around us.

Responding to Threats: I

Threats are one form of communication common to many organizational cultures, especially as pressure mounts. Understanding the varieties of threats can be helpful in determining a response that fits for you.

Blind Agendas

Effective meetings have agendas. But even if a meeting has an agenda, the hidden agendas of participants can cause trouble. Another source of trouble, less frequently recognized, is the blind agenda.

Scope Creep, Hot Hands, and the Illusion of Control

Despite our awareness of scope creep's dangerous effects on projects and other efforts, we seem unable to prevent it. Two cognitive biases — the "hot hand fallacy" and "the illusion of control" — might provide explanations.

See also Emotions at Work and Problem Solving and Creativity for more related articles.

Forthcoming issues of Point Lookout

Coming February 27: Brainstorming and Speedstorming: II

Recent research into the effectiveness of brainstorming has raised some questions. Motivated to examine alternatives, I ran into speedstorming. Here's Part II of an exploration of the properties of speedstorming. Available here and by RSS on February 27.

And on March 6: A Pain Scale for Meetings

Most meetings could be shorter, less frequent, and more productive than they are. Part of the problem is that we don't realize how much we do to get in our own way. If we track the incidents of dysfunctional activity, we can use the data to spot trends and take corrective action. Available here and by RSS on March 6.

Coaching services

I offer email and telephone coaching at both corporate and individual rates. Contact Rick for details at rbrenhAKdtwtynwuuDsPyner@ChacSBnTmhbXpdAKXMjuoCanyon.com or (650) 787-6475, or toll-free in the continental US at (866) 378-5470.

Get the ebook!

Past issues of Point Lookout are available in six ebooks:

• Get 2001-2 in Geese Don't Land on Twigs (PDF, USD 11.95)
• Get 2003-4 in Why Dogs Wag (PDF, USD 11.95)
• Get 2005-6 in Loopy Things We Do (PDF, USD 11.95)
• Get 2007-8 in Things We Believe That Maybe Aren't So True (PDF, USD 11.95)
• Get 2009-10 in The Questions Not Asked (PDF, USD 11.95)
• Get all of the first twelve years (2001-2012) in The Collected Issues of Point Lookout (PDF, USD 28.99)

Are you a writer, editor or publisher on deadline? Are you looking for an article that will get people talking and get compliments flying your way? You can have 500 words in your inbox in one hour. License any article from this Web site. More info

Public seminars

The Power Affect: How We Express Our Personal Power

Many people who possess real organizational power have a characteristic demeanor. It's the way they project their presence. I call this the power affect. Some people — call them power pretenders — adopt the power affect well before they attain significant organizational power. Unfortunately for their colleagues, and for their organizations, power pretenders can attain organizational power out of proportion to their merit or abilities. Understanding the power affect is therefore important for anyone who aims to attain power, or anyone who works with power pretenders. Read more about this program.

• A recording of a program presented 6:00 PM June 29 (Eastern Time), Monthly Webinar, Technobility Webinar Series. You can earn 1.0 Category 'A' PDU by viewing this program. View this program now.