It has always been very difficult for me to ask for help.

Perhaps it’s the false pride of believing that I can do and figure out everything by myself, perhaps it’s not wanting to impose on others or bother them, perhaps it’s not actually believing that anyone can help or perhaps it’s my inner critic telling me that asking for help is a sign of weakness.

So as you can imagine, I’ve suffered alone through the many difficult times in life that we all go through – early death of a parent, health issues, divorce, relocating, job transition, etc. There is a positive side to all of this – it has kept me working hard, independent, diligent, industrious, and most of all tenacious and perseverant – all great values and strengths that I possess today. But on the flip side, in retrospect, those were also the loneliest times in my life when I felt the most disconnected and powerless and in fact, needed the most help.

I was fortunate enough that one time out of desperation (because I just couldn’t figure things out on my own) I felt I had no choice but to reach out to someone else. It’s how I came to finding a coach.

Trust me it took a lot of pride swallowing for me to reach out to a coach to ask for help considering that I have been the ‘go to’ person for people looking for solutions the majority of my career. That being said, there was such a sense of relief in telling someone else what was going on with me and just giving myself over to this person. The experience changed my life forever in a way that nothing else ever has and it was only in a matter of weeks.

Anyone who knows me personally knows that I don’t say things like ‘life-changing’ but there is honestly no other way to describe it. It’s how I started on the path to becoming a professional, certified coach myself. It’s easily the best return on investment that I’ve ever experienced. My own experience is why I’m motivated to help people who are feeling a little lost, a little alone and unsure of how to find their way out of it – whether it be career or any other part of life.

Trust me, I’ve been there. I think back to my former self and want to ask her “do you want to be ‘strong’ and independent or do you want to be happy”? I want to tell her to have the courage to ask for help.

So my question to you is what do you secretly want help with? What will it feel like to actually get help? When you look back on this time, what will you want to tell yourself?