Episode 50: Overwhelmed? Here’s How to Ask for the Help You Need
ITUNES | SPOTIFY
Feeling stretched thin trying to do it all? You’re not alone. In this episode, we dive into why asking for help can feel so hard—especially for working moms—and how learning to do it well can change everything. From mindset shifts to practical scripts and real-life examples, you’ll walk away with the tools and confidence to ask for (and accept) support from the small everyday things to the season of life where you really can't go it all yourself. If you’re tired of carrying the weight alone, this episode is for you.
links & resources mentioned in this episode:
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You are listening to the Life Coach for Working Moms podcast, the show where we are talking about what it actually takes to make life work as a working mom. I'm your host, Katelyn Denning, a full time working mom of three and a certified life and executive coach. I'm so glad you're here and I hope you enjoy this week's episode.
Hey, welcome back to another episode of the podcast. We are officially in summer season here. My kids, as of this morning, are in their first week of summer camp. It is wild to think about. I know probably depending on where you are, some of you are still wrapping up the final weeks of school. Maybe others of you, like me are already into whatever your summer schedule looks like.
It's a transition for sure, and I have noticed as I preview my calendar for these coming weeks and adjust to the transition that , I'm gonna need some help. I definitely cannot do it all alone to manage , this new schedule and my work and the things that we need to get done around the house and also the fun things that we're doing this summer, which if you haven't listened to the summer bucket list episode.
Be sure to do that after you finish this one. It's episode 47 about creating your summer bucket list
and I, realized that I. I have become quite comfortable asking for help and receiving help, which I think is just as valuable of a skill. If you cannot receive the help, you're probably not gonna be very good or want to ask for it either. And yet, I see so many. Women, particularly moms who struggle to ask for help.
And so I wanted to do an episode today to talk through what I think has been really helpful for me in reframing. How I look at asking for and receiving help, but also just some very tactical, practical tips and strategies that can make it easier as well for you. How to say things and what to actually ask for.
We could probably debate and discuss. For hours. Why it is that so many of us, particularly moms, have trouble asking for help. There are so many different messages and influences and the modeling that we saw maybe growing up or even just around us in our motherhood journey that led us here, but learning.
How to ask for help. Being comfortable asking for help, not making it mean anything about you. Other than that, you could use some help in this moment. And then, as I said, actually receiving the help. These are skills that can make or break your experience as a parent, and especially as a parent who is also managing a career.
It is more than any single person can do, and this is something I wish I had learned earlier in my parenting journey, but now that I have, I can't imagine being able to do even half of what I do without having the skill of asking for and receiving help.
I'm sure you can think of dozens of examples of when you felt completely alone or overwhelmed or exhausted, just crushed by life and all of the things that you have to do. For me, the newborn stage immediately comes to mind but also seasons of my career where I was traveling a lot and had lots of high pressure deadlines.
I'm also picturing the season when my youngest son , was really sick. If you think about any of those times, whatever comes to mind for you, I'd be curious to know if your initial instinct was to ask for help. If your, if you're anything like I used to be, you're. Probably really good at making excuses as to why you don't really need to bother.
Anyone else really good at telling yourself you can do it. Let me just white knuckle it. Let me just hunker down. Get focused. Stay up a little bit later. I can do this.
You suffer through the overwhelm and the exhaustion on your own until things get better. Do you survive? Yes. Would. Things have been easier and less stressful if someone had been there to help.
Probably. I. Why in those instances is it so hard to actually ask for help? I think for so many of us, we just haven't seen it in action. We haven't had experiences where we've been able to see someone else do it really effectively and graciously.
It's not been modeled for us. It's not the norm. Maybe in your family or in your peer group or from what you see with your colleagues at work. So you don't have the skill because you don't have a lot of practice in doing it. Instead. Your brain comes in and offers excuses like. What makes your challenge more important than someone else's? You know that your family loves you, that your friends care about your wellbeing, that those closest to you want to see you happy and thriving.
But you also know that everyone is busy and everyone has their own challenges and struggles and long to-do lists. What about yours is more important? You can't possibly ask someone to step away from their struggles or everything that they have to do to help you with yours. Or your brain might say, well, if I ask for help, then I'll need to reciprocate, and I don't know that I have the capacity to do anything for anyone else.
I can barely take care of my own stuff. . This is the thought that supports the previous one about everyone else being busy, we've been led to believe that everything has to be fair. You probably see this in your kids, especially if they have siblings. I know this is a big topic in our house about what's fair,
we are constantly keeping score if you are in a partnership. You know what I mean? And so we are afraid to be in a deficit or to be indebted to someone else, to have to make up for the fact that they gave you help. So we don't ask another excuse that our brains will offer up is what would you actually have someone do if they did offer to help?
This is mine to take care of. I can't delegate. I can't, there's nothing for anyone else to do. So let's say you actually put yourself out there. You ask for help, and they say, yes, I wanna help you. Now what if someone is going to give up their time and energy to lend a hand? You wanna have something productive and meaningful for them to do.
You want them to feel like helping you made a difference and it was worth their time. So what is it that you really need, and when you are overwhelmed, buried beneath a mountain of tasks, or you are sleep deprived or just completely burnt out, it is challenging to come up with that answer of what is it that I really need?
What could I even ask someone to help me with?
And the last question or excuse that I think is so common in preventing us from actually asking for help is, how do you know that this occasion truly warrants someone's help? You don't wanna be the girl who cried wolf. You want to be selective. You want to prioritize your requests or your needs for help, and you only want to ask when you truly need the help most.
So maybe you should just wait. Maybe you should just wait for a more worthy. Need a time when you are really stressed, when you are super overwhelmed and you actually can't do it yourself. And so this time again, you'll just figure out a way to get it done
it's no wonder. We as a collective, we don't have a lot of practice or experience asking for help. If you resonate or connect with even just one of those questions that I listed as an example, it's no wonder those doubts, those questions, those fears, they can be noisy and they keep us frozen. It is easier to stay where we are, to just figure it out on our own and do it ourselves than to challenge those questions that our brain offers up to us.
And so we don't get the practice, we don't get the reps in,
but you know that the only way to develop a skill to practice a skill. Is to actually do it. And so you have to practice asking for help. Now, if you're not sure how, or you have reservations or those questions, or those doubts are really loud for you and they've kept you from asking for help in the past, it's okay.
I wanna talk about what you need to know, what you need to remember. Before you go out and practice asking for help so that you can be someone who goes out and asks for help without the drama.
This is just something that you do because you recognize that no one does it alone and you know how to ask for help effectively. So the first thing I want you to remember is that there is never going to be a right time. What is right Anyway, you could wait and wait for the right, the most worthy time to ask for help.
But the truth is, if you feel in your gut that you could use some help, now is the time. There is no threshold for what warrants asking for help. There is no qualifier. If you feel the nudge. If you think that something would be easier, if you had some help, you can just ask. We are all adults, and so just because you ask doesn't mean the other person has to say Yes, they are grown adults.
Asking your kids for help is a different topic for another day, but they are grown adults and they can and sometimes will say no.
That no, doesn't have to mean anything. Other than that they can't or they don't wanna help you this time, and that's okay. Your job is simply to ask and then let the other person decide for themselves whether they want to, whether they can, whether they have the capacity to help you. I also want you to remember that help is not a finite resource.
Just like love is not finite. If you have more than one kid, you probably remember, or at least this was my experience, asking yourself, will I be able to love another baby? As much as I love my firstborn, is there enough of me to go around if I have another child? Well. In my experience, yes, there is enough.
I am able to love all three of my children enough, more than enough.
And so in the same way people can help you again and again as long as they're able to and as long as you make it easy on them. We're gonna talk about that more in a minute. There is no set number of help sessions that you get from friends and family or even neighbors or strangers.
If you are genuine in your need for help and you provide specific details around what it is that you need help with so that people can confidently step up to help, they will likely do it again and again, people are not keeping score, which I think you will realize if you. Start by giving help yourself.
So if you are struggling to ask for help when you need it, I think one of the best things you can do is to start by giving help to someone else. I. See what it feels like. Remind yourself of what it feels like to be helpful, to say yes, to support somebody that you love, that you care about, or just somebody that needs help in the grocery store or on the sidewalk.
This is such a great reminder to yourself that it's not that much of a hassle, and most of the time it actually feels good. Then you can draw on that memory, on this experience. Maybe it's been a while since you've given help, and you just need that refresher yourself so that you can remember it the next time.
It's your turn to ask for help. Now, when you do actually make the ask, I think the best and the most helpful thing that you can do is to be specific. I see this. I see this more and more in content or articles talking about helping a new mom or a new parent instead of , I'd love to help sometime, or, what can I do?
Or what do you need? To be specific, I'm gonna come over for an hour and wash all of your dishes, or I'm gonna come over and hold the baby so that you can go take a shower or take a nap. The specificity of what you are able to give makes it so much easier on a new parent who is tired and recovering from birth and , just navigating that huge transition.
So you can think like that as well when you go to ask for help. If you just start with, you know, sometime I'd love it if you are not providing enough direction. I used to do this with I. Like asking grandparents to maybe watch the kids, and I think I've shared this before until just a few years ago, we never had any family in town.
So even years ago and now, oh, we'd love to, have an afternoon to tackle this house project, or it'd be really helpful sometime if the kids could spend an evening with you so we can do X, Y, Z. And they, of course, they'd say, sure, right. But then there's never any follow through because there wasn't a specific ask.
But when you make a specific request, it makes it so much easier for someone to respond. Honestly, yes or no with whether or not they can be the one to help you with this. So tell those around you exactly how to help you and when. For example, when my son was sick a few years ago, so many people reached out with a text or a message to say they were thinking of us.
They hoped he was doing okay and was there anything they could do? And at first I wasn't sure, like they can't be in the hospital with him. They can't, once we were home, be up at night with him giving him medicine or comforting him. But then I thought, you know. Somebody could bring me a cup of coffee from my favorite coffee shop because I am so tired and you know, when you're caring for someone who is sick.
The days feel very monotonous and just like you're doing the same thing over and over again. But what a treat to have a latte from my favorite coffee shop. And so I asked for that. I. Or for another friend who reached out, I was able to say, Hey, do you have any puzzles or toys that your kids maybe aren't playing with right now that you could just loan us?
Because we're stuck at home and we're tired of watching Disney Plus. And a new puzzle or a new toy that we've not seen before might be really fun. Or to another neighbor. Hey, are you headed to Trader Joe's in the next week? If so, could you pick us up some of our favorite snacks? I'm happy to Venmo you, but I can't take him out and , we're just surviving as it is, there's no way we can get to the store.
But if you could do that for us, that would be so helpful. If you are in the newborn phase or you are going through a really challenging time, I'd love it if you could stop by this weekend or next weekend and just sit with me for an hour. I could use some adult conversation or even to your partner. Who is there with you day in and day out, but still may not know exactly how to help you.
Could it be an ask, like, I'm super overwhelmed right now. Could I have an hour this evening to be at my computer while you put the kids to bed, or could you take this thing off of my to-do list? I know that I usually manage that task, but I just can't right now. Make the ask specific and then allow the other person to say yes or no, but they can say yes or no when they know what they're saying yes or no to.
That was a mouthful, but I hope that makes sense. Next, when you are asking for help, be sure to express gratitude in whatever way makes sense for you. Tell the other person what that meant to you. Oh my gosh, that coffee just made my morning. Thank you so much. Or my son loves these puzzles.
I cannot thank you enough for loaning those to us, or those snacks just made my day, or that hour that I got to spend at my computer tonight. Instead of doing bedtime, I was able to do X, Y, Z, and oh my gosh, I feel so much better. Whether you say it face to face, whether you send it in a text message or even write a thank you note, who doesn't love a thank you note in the mail?
Telling someone what that did for them goes such a long way. I'm getting teary eyed just talking through these scenarios to you because. It does make such a difference, and I think we can all do a better job of telling other people in our lives what their support, what their help does for us.
Okay, I had to pause the recording. I'm back now. Seriously. Tears in my eyes. So meaningful. So I wanna give you just a couple of examples because I mentioned that this week right now, heading into a season, I know I'm going to need some help. So just in this week alone, and it's only Monday, I have asked my sister-in-law if she could pick up a couple of things for me at Costco, because I know that their family goes to Costco every other week.
I can Venmo her for the things that I need because I can't fit a trip in. I did ask my husband to take care of kid bedtime tomorrow night so I can get an extra hour of work in due to these short camp days this week. That is gonna make such a huge difference for me and allow me to be more present with my kids on the other days because I'm not stressed or thinking about when am I gonna get these things done.
And I've asked a neighbor if she could give my son a ride. That is such an easy one, and I know my kids are a little bit older at 10, eight and six. You can't necessarily or may not want to do that with your younger kids, but when your kids start to get into activities. I love asking for help for rides.
It is usually no problem for someone else to drop him off or take him places, and I do that for all of my kids and I also extend that to others. I actually offered to another family who is doing a camp with us next week. I said, Hey, I have room in my car. Happy to take your son if it ever makes sense.
I'll give you a copy of my license so I can be on the approved, , pickup list for him as well. I think normalizing that we all need help and highlighting all of the ways that we ask for and receive help. I mean, it starts with us. It starts with us. If we want to make it more acceptable to ask for help, we have to start asking for more help.
And when you receive help, be sure to let others know that you are not doing it alone. You have a village who supports you. One of the most impactful things for me personally in getting comfortable asking for help was seeing one of my friends. And actually several of my colleagues ask for help. It's inspiring.
It helped me see that it's possible to ask for help. They are doing it. So can I and so can you. And then we need to give help when we can, when we are in seasons where we have the time or the energy or the capacity. We can offer help, not because we are keeping score and somebody else helped us, so therefore we need to help them.
But because we can and we want to, and we know that no one does it alone.
So when you have the capacity to offer help and to give help, do so by asking for help you paved the way for others to ask for help too. Everyone needs it, but somehow along the way, we've forgotten that we're not supposed to, and we don't have to do it all by ourselves. We don't have to white knuckle it and just survive and figure it out all on our own.
We can create community. If we don't have one, we can lean on the people in our lives, whether they are close friends and family and loved ones or not. I recognize that for some of us who don't have as big of a support network, that might be a little bit more of a challenge, but I have supported clients who have been doing so much of working motherhood alone, and even they have challenged themselves to look for opportunities and for people who they might ask for help from.
In addition to asking for help from my partner, my friends, my family, my neighbors, one of the most impactful ways that I have asked for help is in getting coaching myself. Once I decided that getting support made everything in my life easier, so much changed. I was able to do things I had not been able to do since becoming a mom and having so much less time.
I started seeing things in ways I'd not seen them before. I made faster progress, and it's just made the journey of life and work and parenthood so much more enjoyable. I have a coach to this day because I enjoy doing life with the support of a coach, and so many of my clients feel the same way. It's why I have clients who have been with me for years or who come back again and again in different seasons of their life.
I. If you are ready to ask for help to get support in making life easier as a working mom, I would love to be one of the ways in which you receive help. You can head to themothernurture.com/application to answer a few questions, and then I'll be in touch with whether or not I think this could be the help and the support that you need.
Again, head to themothernurture.com/application. Help me spread the word. . We need more women, more moms, especially, more working moms, asking for help, receiving help, giving help. Let's normalize that. We are not doing it alone. I. Share this episode with a friend, with a colleague, with someone who needs this reminder. And don't forget that everything related to the podcast can always be found over in the show notes at themothernurture.com/podcast. All right. I will talk with you in the next episode. Until then, take care.
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