Overwhelmed? What If You Asked for Help? (Part 3)

Posted on June 11th, 2009, by Meggin McIntosh, Ph.D.

Who Could You Ask for Help…and In What Areas?

Read the following steps…and do them, please.

Identify the three areas where you are the most overwhelmed right now. The areas might be big or small, personal or professional, longstanding or brand new. Write down those three right now.
Next to each of the three areas, write down just one way that the overwhelm could be lessened.
Now, right next to what you just wrote down, note the name of a specific person, business, service, or agency, who could be a source of help.
Contact one of these source of help…and ask for the help you need. Please. Just ask.
Be brave. You might even trying asking someone for help that you have the feeling that the answer will be “no.” If that’s what the person says, well, you were already thinking that was a possibility. And if the person says, “yes,” then what a wonderful surprise! And it kind of encourages you to ask someone else for help.
Either way, please identify the help you need, what would help, who would be a ‘helper,’ and then ask.
Start small, but start.

Now, if you are reading this and you are great at asking and trusting others, then I’d encourage you to acknowledge one or more of those people for the help you have received and that they have given. An acknowledgment is much more than a compliment. It affects the person who receives the acknowledgment because it very deliberately touches on what is important and why it matters. For example, a compliment you might give to someone who helped you would be:

“Hey, thanks so much for helping me get this workshop room set up. I appreciate it.”

An acknowledgment for help would be:

“Lisa. You have no idea how much your dependability and attention to detail make this event possible. I could not possibly do this on my own. You think about the participants, you think about the budget, you get to know all the employees at the hotel, and you do all this smoothly and naturally. I notice the way you have everything set ‘just so,’ and I know that everyone who walks in the room knows that he or she is being taken care of. I especially know that and I appreciate it more than you know.”

See the difference (and it’s not just the number of words). And I really do acknowledge and appreciate all the help that my chief productivity assistant, Dr. Lisa Cady, gives to me.

And if you know you are overwhelmed – and part of it is because you never ask for (or expect) help, and you would like to learn more so you can be ‘just whelmed,’ then you’re invited to join others (worldwide) who receive Meggin’s weekly emails (free!) at

**I Want to Be Just Whelmed (http://www.JustWhelmed.com)

If you would prefer quick, short weekly tips, then the following site is another place to find suggestions and other tools to support you in your quest for peaceful productivity:

**Top Ten Productivity Tips (http://www.TopTenProductivityTips.com)

(c) 2009 by Meggin McIntosh, Ph.D., “The Ph.D. of Productivity”(tm). Through her company, Emphasis on Excellence, Inc., Meggin McIntosh changes what people know, feel, dream, and do. Sound interesting? It is!