One of the life-changing decisions I made a few years ago was to let go of my ego whenever I see an opportunity that I know would help me grow and learn at any level. That could be anything, like asking for help to prepare for an interview, with a bug in a code, or even just to get around in a new city.

I was amazed at the extent that some people are willing to go to help out.

I’ve also gained a lot of mentors in the process, of which I feel less awkward asking them for help again.

Letting go briefly of the ego might sound like the most difficult step in this journey, but in reality, what can follow from self-loath and regrets are the most challenging part.

By asking for help, we sometimes risk displaying our vulnerabilities and shortcomings.

That is usually more highlighted with technical tasks, because of the fear that the other person will find out how little you know (imposter syndrome).

For example, I debugged a piece of code for two days, only to find out after venturing to ask for help, that I forgot to add a return before the goto statement; thus the code was actually undoing everything it initialized before exiting the function. Or on another occasion, where after again two days of debugging (apparently that’s my cue to ask for help) I found out with the help of a mentor that a library wasn’t linking correctly because I had a spelling mistake in one of the configuration parameters.

Although, I won’t say the time spent in debugging was wasted, because I do end up learning tons of stuff in that process, but I still cringe at how stupid those mistakes usually are, and end up feeling embarrassed and ashamed.

As I’ve caught myself recently going through those feelings, I had to actively practice self-compassion, which is different from self-pity. You acknowledge your shortcomings, but don’t judge or get harsh on yourself. On that, I will end up with a note to my future self:

Be courageous and reach out for help, but don’t beat yourself up afterward. Just like you would treat others with compassion, yourself deserves to be treated the same as well. Otherwise, you would not only be miserable, but you will hinder your learning journey and limit your growth because you will get discouraged to reach out for help again.