Asking for Help: Independence vs. Collaboration
How Seeking Support Enhances Personal Growth and Team Success
Ask for help sometimes, even when you don't really need it. You'll probably learn more than if you do it all alone 🙌
Independence vs. Collaboration
From a young age, I was driven by the goal of becoming independent. During my school years, I found it difficult to ask for help. I worried about seeming weak, dependent, or bothersome. This hesitation to seek assistance often led me to tackle challenges alone, resulting in successes and failures.
This desire guided many of my decisions. A few years ago, after finally being able to dedicate myself fully to development, I decided to learn the technologies that would allow me to become a full-stack developer. In this pursuit, my sense of independence proved valuable: I learned a lot, completed entire side projects on my own, and took on tasks in the whole stack that interested me. Whenever I encountered obstacles, I was determined to resolve them myself, even if it meant spending more time than necessary on a task. I was very proud of it!
Looking back, I realize that I wanted to be a full-stack developer for the wrong reasons. I had this idealized vision of a full-stack developer as someone who could handle everything autonomously, without needing anyone else's help.
Today, however, I find myself increasingly reliant on others, and I actually appreciate this shift. It might seem contradictory: looking for independence only to be more dependent. But there’s a valuable lesson from this experience.
The Benefits of Asking for Help
Today, I often seek help, even for small issues or when I don't need it. Here’s why asking for help is so beneficial:
Encouraging a Collaborative Culture: By leading by example, we encourage others to ask for help without hesitation, promoting a more collaborative and open environment.
Building Trust: Asking for help strengthens mutual trust within a team, showing that we value and respect each other’s input and expertise.
Gaining New Perspectives: Feedback from others can provide new insights and help us grow more rapidly by offering different viewpoints on the challenges we face.
Learning: When we ask for help, we gain access to the knowledge and skills of others, which can accelerate our learning and professional development. This continuous exchange of knowledge helps us to improve our abilities and understand different approaches to problem-solving.
Efficient Problem-Solving: Knowing when to ask for help is crucial for avoiding unnecessary delays when facing challenging problems.
Finding the Right Balance
Asking for help doesn’t undermine independence. It enhances it by complementing our efforts with the strengths and perspectives of others. By integrating support and collaboration, we build a more robust skill set, tackle challenges more effectively, and promote a richer learning environment. In this way, independence and collaboration work together to elevate both personal growth and collective achievement.
It’s also important to strike the right balance: not asking for help without first making an effort to understand and solve the problem independently. It’s about being able to articulate the issue clearly and sometimes seeking opinions or advice rather than straightforward assistance. Questions like "What’s your opinion on this?", "How would you approach this?", or "Let me explain this to you, does it make sense?" can be invaluable in this process.
Ask for help sometimes, even when you don't really need it. You'll probably learn more than if you do it all alone 🙌