How to ask for help at work (without feeling awkward)

Squiggly Careers

AmazingIf

Careers, Business, Management

4.9 • 838 Ratings

🗓️ 29 January 2026

⏱️ 8 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In this Squiggly Shortcut episode, Helen shares a practical, step-by-step framework for asking for help at work in a way that feels confident, clear, and effective. Many of us struggle to ask for help because we fear looking incompetent, don’t want to burden others, or try to push through on our own. Helen breaks down how to neutralize that anxiety, identify what kind of help you need - support, solutions, or a sounding board- figure out who can give it, and frame your ask so it’s actionable and easy to respond to. If you’ve ever felt stuck or overwhelmed at work, this episode will give you a simple, Post-It-note-sized system to get the support you need and move your squiggly career forward. Episode 527 🦞 Pre-order Learn Like A Lobster: 🇺🇸PRH US - https://bit.ly/3KxTeBn 🇬🇧 Amazon UK - https://amzn.to/3KcRZaR For questions about Squiggly Careers or to share feedback, please email helenandsarah@squigglycareers.com More ways to learn about Squiggly Careers: 📩 Download our free career tools: https://www.amazingif.com/toolkit/ 🦞 Join the Learn Like a Lobster Sprint: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLNQl9gsac8BXnWe2qoGuHkLKwsygjP_Ma&si=l7kODG3JpopH0Irz 📮 Get Squiggly Careers in Action in your inbox: https://bit.ly/SquigglyCareersInAction 📚 Read our books: The Squiggly Career and You Coach You: https://www.amazingif.com/books/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hi, it's Helen from the Squiggly Careers podcast. And before you listen to today's episode, I just
0:04.9	want to let you know about some news that Sarah and I are very excited about, and that is that our new
0:09.3	book, Learn Like a Lobster, is ready to pre-order now. We really care about everybody learning and
0:15.9	growing at work, but we know it is not easy to do. And so we're borrowing some brilliance from lobsters to help you to do it.
0:22.9	The book takes three inspiring and surprising abilities of lobsters in terms of how they grow
0:29.0	and applies it to how we can learn at work. So if you want some inspiration and you need some
0:34.0	practical insights to support your learning, growth and development. This is the book for you.
0:38.9	And if you pre-order now and send your pre-order to hello at learn like a lobster.com,
0:43.9	you can join the lobster library where we have a community of lobster learners ready for you to learn with,
0:49.8	some live sessions, and this will all happen before the book arrives.
0:55.4	So pre-order the book now,
1:00.7	send it to hello at learn like a lobster.com and get started with your learning straight away.
1:06.6	Now let's get on to today's episode. Hi everybody. It is Helen here from the Squiggly Careers podcast and you are listening to one of our Squiggly Short shortcut episodes. These episodes come out every Thursday.
1:12.6	They're designed to be a really quick listen to help you with the specific challenge,
1:17.0	opportunity, problem you might be having at work right now. And today's topic is about asking for help.
1:36.3	The more we are able to ask for help at work, the less likely we are to get stuck in situations, and the more able we are to succeed in our squiggly career.
1:37.9	So good news on that front.
1:42.2	However, the bad news is that lots of us find this really hard to do.
1:45.8	We worry that people will think we don't know what we're doing, so we feel a bit vulnerable and exposed when we ask for help. Also, if you're anything
1:51.3	like me, I have this sort of dogged persistence where I think, well, I'll just work a bit harder
1:57.1	and then I'll be able to do it. Or perhaps sometimes you think, well, I don't want to
2:01.2	bother that person because they're really busy too. But all of these blockers that we put in the way
	...

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