As we make our way through the world, many learn that when they muster up the courage to request what they need, they’ll be met with crickets — or worse, with extreme resistance.

While this can be true in interpersonal relationships, I think even in those interpersonal spheres, the phenomenon is informed and even enforced by the larger systems that surround us.

When you run into these roadblocks often enough, you eventually start to think it’s easier to do everything on your own. To not be that guy who asks for an assist. To not rock the boat.

This experience is particularly common for women, likely because of the cultural norms around gender which we’ve absorbed over the course of our lifetimes. For women in particular, we know that this self-silencing type of behavior can negatively impact not just our financial or mental health, but our physical health to boot.

It can feel overwhelming to express ourselves. Awkward to adjust to being anything other than a vessel of sustenance for others. But the more you at least give it a shot, the more likely it is that voicing your needs will improve your well-being.

Self-silencing can limit your ability to take care of yourself

Failing to express your needs not only cuts you off from the assistance of others. It can also hamper your ability to provide for yourself.

Here’s an example from Lessons in Chemistry:

We’ll put the conflicts of fame versus personal life aside for a moment, and focus solely on the sister’s raise.

The sister probably needed a raise. But a lifetime of conditioning led her to believe that if she
went to her boss, she’d experience a negative outcome.

Now, systemically, we know that her fear was justified. Women ask for raises just as often as men, but they’re rejected 25% more often. And these stats are relatively recent  — we can assume they’re better than when the show was set in the 1950s.

The sister probably had visceral, like experiences in the past. The threat of negative consequences for voicing her needs was real.

TIP: It turns out women have to request a raise differently to accommodate gender norms – but that’s a conversation for another time.

The thing is…if you don’t ask, you’re definitely not going to get it. She likely needed that money
to care for herself and/or her family. Had she continued to let that neurochemical reaction rule,
she wouldn’t have been able to accomplish that task. The risk was necessary.

While the anxiety was there for a reason, she had to push through it. Because what she needed
was on the other side.

It’s okay to pause in fear. But try not to freeze.

In ‘A Healthy State of Panic,’ Farnoosh Torabi delves deeper into this topic, encouraging us to
have a conversation with our fear or anxiety. She notes that when fear pops up, there might be
something you need to do before moving forward. Something you need to prepare or reflect on
before taking further action.

Let’s extend our analogy of the waitress’ sister. To get her raise, she might need to get a pulse on what the industry was currently paying for her role. Perhaps before she burst through the door of her boss’s office, she needed to make a list of her accomplishments and contributions to the organization to justify her ask.

Maybe she needed to brainstorm some things she really appreciated about the company or
management’s leadership, so she could cushion her asks between flattery.

All of these would be smart moves before requesting a raise as a woman. But if the fear hadn’t
been there to make her pause, she might have skipped over them.

That’s not to say fear should freeze you – stop you from moving forward until you’ve reached
some unobtainable level of perfectionism. That’s by no means Torabi’s conceit.

But when you take a second to pause and ask what you might need to do to feel less anxious
before moving forward, you can find some valuable information.

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The the wall of anxiety

You don’t have to be a lady to feel fear about expressing your needs. We all come across
instances in our lives that cause us to stop in our tracks. A wall of anxiety that prevents us from
moving forward. That tells us it’s easier to deny ourselves a voice than to push through to the
other side.

But what’s on the other side of that wall? From here, it looks a whole lot like getting your basic
needs met.

Addressing and then pushing through the discomfort can be beneficial for your financial life. Your mental health. Your physical health. Be sure to be respectful of the ‘no’s you hear along
the way, but don’t give up hope that you’ll eventually hear a “yes” — if you ask the right person.

Because here’s the thing: Believe it or not, there are people out there who actually do want to help you. Depending on where you work, your boss might not always be super excited to dig into the coffers to give you a raise, but your friends and neighbors are another story.

People are likely to help you – but only if you ask.

We all need help to get through this thing called life. Yet often, we’re afraid to ask for it. We
wonder why people don’t just offer it spontaneously – especially when they can clearly see that
you’re fighting an uphill battle.

And the answer is…it’s complicated. Sometimes people are self-interested and oblivious.
There’s no way around that. But even for the would-be helpers, there’s a lot of social norms to
navigate.

If you remind that new mother you can babysit or go grocery shopping for her after she hasn’t
taken you up on your first offer, are you being too pushy?

If you give money to someone who is struggling to get back on their feet, will they take it as an
insult to their dignity?

It can be embarrassing to ask for help, but many times, people just don’t know what you need
from them, and it feels too invasive to try and guess. When you can identify your needs and
make a clear ask, they’re actually way more likely to help than you give them credit for.

It’s a phenomenon that has been studied and affirmed by social psychologists.

You won’t hear ‘yes’ 100% of the time. But that’s still more helpful than the effective ‘no’
you’re left with when you don’t put yourself out there. The ‘no’s may also inform you of where there are imbalanced relationships in your life in some circumstances.

Plus every time one of those ‘yes’s rolls through, it will build your faith in humanity a little
stronger. It’s like building a muscle – the more you do it, the easier it gets.