You’re Allowed to Ask for Help at Work

We spend a lot of our adult lives at work, often trying to hold everything together while acting like we’re totally fine. Overloaded calendars, personal stress, endless expectations, and somehow we still hesitate to say, “I need help.”

For many people, asking for support at work feels risky. It triggers fears about how we’ll be perceived, whether we’ll seem less competent, or whether we’ll be seen as “not tough enough” for the job. We tell ourselves everyone else is handling things better. We assume silence is strength.

But the truth is, asking for help is one of the most important skills you can build in your career. It’s not a sign of failure. It’s a sign that you know yourself and that you care about doing the work well without burning out.

Why It Feels So Uncomfortable

Most people were never taught how to ask for help, especially not in professional settings. In school, we were praised for independence. In early jobs, we learned to say yes even when it meant sacrificing our boundaries. By the time we’re deep into our careers, we’ve often internalized the idea that struggling should be private and temporary. Something to just "push through."

If you’ve ever worked in a place where asking for help was met with eye-rolls, silence, or punishment, the discomfort makes even more sense. It is an unfortunate reality that not everyone has the kind of workplace where leaders check in regularly or invite honest conversations. In environments where communication is mostly transactional or where mental health isn’t openly discussed, asking for help feels like stepping into dangerous territory. The burden falls entirely on the employee to bring it up, and that’s not always easy.

What Asking for Help Can Look Like

Asking for help doesn’t mean giving a full monologue about your personal life or admitting defeat. Sometimes it’s as simple as saying, “I’m running into roadblocks,” or “I’m overwhelmed and could use another perspective.” You can be honest without oversharing.

If you’re struggling with a task or project:

• “I’ve been spinning my wheels on this. Could I grab 15 minutes with you to talk through it?”

If your workload is unmanageable:

• “I’m hitting a wall with everything on my plate. Can we talk about prioritizing or shifting a few things?”

If personal life is affecting work:

• “I’m going through something outside of work that’s taking a toll. I want to stay engaged, but I could use a little flexibility this week. Can we work out a plan?”

You don’t need to (and shouldn't) wait until things fall apart. The earlier you speak up, the easier it is to create a solution together.

If You’re a Manager, Make It Easier

If you lead people, you have more influence than you realize. A team that feels safe asking for help is a team that lasts.

That means checking in without waiting for a crisis. Creating space for people to admit when they’re struggling and responding with curiosity, not judgment. It means modeling this yourself, too. When managers talk openly about their own limits or ask for help, it gives others permission to do the same.

You Don’t Need to Be in Crisis

There’s this other idea that you need to be completely overwhelmed or falling apart before you’re “allowed” to ask for help. But it doesn’t have to get to that point.

You can ask for support because you're tired, because you're stuck, because life is happening, or because you're trying to do your best work and know you can’t do it alone. You can ask early. You can ask often. You don’t need permission.

Doing great work doesn’t mean doing it all yourself, and no one gets a prize for pretending they’re fine when they’re not. Asking for help is helpful to everyone!

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