There are many understandable reasons why you might find it difficult to ask for help when you need it. Psychologists have been interested in this【C1】_____for decades, not least because people’s widespread【C2】_____to ask for help has led to some high-profile failures.

Asking for help takes【C3】_____. It involves communicating a need on your part—there’s something you can’t do.【C4】__, you’re broadcasting your own weakness, which can be 【C5】__. You might worry about coming across as incompetent. You might have【C6】__about losing control of whatever it is you’re asking for help with.【C7】__someone starts to help, perhaps they’ll take over, or get credit for your earlier efforts. Yet another【C8】__that you might be worried about is being a nuisance or【C9】_____the person you go to for help.

If you struggle with low self-esteem, you might find it especially difficult to【C10】_____for help because you have the added worry of the other person【C11】__your request. You might see such refusals as implying something【C12】__about the status of your relationship with them. To【C13】__these difficulties, try to remind yourself that everyone needs help sometimes. Nobody knows everything and can do everything all by themselves. And while you might【C14】__coming across as incompetent, there’s actually research that shows that advice-seekers are【C15】_____as more competent, not less.

Perhaps most encouraging of all is a paper from 2022 by researchers at Stanford University, in California, that involved a mix of contrived help-seeking interactions and asking people to【C16】_____times they’d sought help in the past. The findings showed that help-seekers generally underestimated how【C17】__other people will be to help and how good it’ll make the help-giver feel ( for most people, having the chance to help someone is highly【C18】_____).

So, bear all this in mind the next time you need to ask for help.【C19】_____, take care over who you ask and when you ask them. And if someone can’t help right now, avoid taking it personally. They might just be too【C20】_____, or they might not feel confident about their ability to help.

【C9】