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Over the years, I’ve read quite a few self-help books and watched a lot of gurus on subjects like motivation, achieving your goals, creating a brighter future for yourself, the laws of attraction and business development (among other things). Many times, one of the common themes I’ve heard is that people are simply afraid to ask for things in life.

We are afraid to ask for help, a discount, a raise, an upgrade, a break — but if you never ask, you may never receive anything. Most of the time, asking doesn’t cost a dime! And while nothing in life is really free, those who ask for things most often will get a lot more out of life. You’ve heard of the squeaky wheel, right?

It Happened to Me

Within my web and business consulting company, I have about 15 employees who help me out with the day-to-day tasks. I’m only one person so I certainly can’t do everything on my own. But as someone who feels that the best way to get something done right is to do it myself, it was very difficult for me to hand over the reigns of many of my projects. In a way, it was me asking for help, even though I am paying these people to do the job. But I still struggled with letting go of some of my control. Now, I couldn’t be happier about the decision to do so, because there is no way I could accomplish so much in a given day without this support network working under me.

One of my employees who has been with me about 6 months has been having some struggles with the job. So I had to fire her this week which wasn’t an easy task. But despite the fact that I told her she’d performed poorly (and this was not her first indication that she was not making the cut), she not only asked for additional pay while she looked for a new job, but also a bonus for the work she’d completed! This was someone I had already gone out of my way for to help pay for her father’s funeral when he unexpectedly died, someone who had taken more sick days than any other person on my staff (and not made up the work) and who was constantly trying to explain to me why she couldn’t finish this or that. Up to this point, she had managed to work off of my emotions, talked me into letting her stay on longer and even to have a third or fourth chance. I don’t know why I kept her on my staff as long as I did since it was a bit like burning my money. But if she had just given up the fight and stopped asking for mercy, she would have been gone long ago.

Ask Effectively & Strategically

Now I’m not saying that you need to beg and plead. In fact, there are books that focus solely on getting what you want by knowing how to ask for what you want correctly and efficiently without sounding needy. But so many of us determine that we must get the jobs done on our own and never ask for help — leading to us feeling worn down, unable to complete our tasks and sometimes even irritated that someone doesn’t just step in to help.

Sometimes people truly think you have it all together and they don’t ask if you need help for that exact reason. And other times, someone may have offered to help in the past and you harshly refused, so they don’t want to go down that road again. But in nearly every circumstance, if you ask the right way, you can get what you need just by asking the right person.

This not only applies to our business lives but at home too. Delegate certain tasks to your kids, your spouse or outside help when you are overwhelmed. You are only one person and you don’t have to be Superman or Superwoman every day. In fact, if you allocate some of your less important tasks to someone else, you will be even more productive at the important tasks.

Are you wanting to have the interest rates on your credit cards dropped or waiting for your family to notice you need them to pitch in more around the house? Stop waiting and just ask! I bet you’ll be surprised at the positive responses you start to receive.

Have you been putting off asking for help? What area of your life has been changed because you asked for help?