Hi everyone! Welcome back. I’m excited to share Part 12 in our 19-Part FinerMinds series on Becoming Just Awesome with you. This week I’m going to focus on the power of support and the importance of asking for help. Obvious concepts, but practiced far too little.

Western society, in particular, orients itself around the individual. We’re focused on the ‘me’ rather than the ‘we’. We strive to achieve goals on our own and asking for help is deemed to be a negative thing, suggesting weakness. This is actually problematic because many of us don’t learn how to be effective team players or even how to ask for help properly. We struggle when it comes to knowing how to get help and who to go to.

Functioning entirely on our own with a project, we often drown. We keep thinking “I can handle it” until it erupts into a full-blown incident where we feel panicked and lost. This situation could be entirely averted if we put together a support team from the outset – if we brought together a collection of individuals with the right background and expertise to lend advice, knowledge and encouragement along the way.

And this ‘support network’ approach isn’t just for work related projects; it’s a beneficial approach for any life project, particularly if we’re going through a rough patch, whether an illness or stressful event. Sometimes the unexpected happens and we feel utterly helpless, but we don’t know how to harness the power of others to support us through a difficult situation.

Study after study has demonstrated that being a part of a support network, whether a casual social network or a more formal support group, has significant benefits, including:

• Decreased anxiety and depression
• Increased life expectancy
• Less stress
• Enhanced immune function
• Increased confidence and sense of self-worth
• Gain in knowledge
• Greater sense of belonging and security

The above advantages are especially important to keep you mentally and physically grounded if you’re going through challenging circumstances.

Simply having a circle of supportive friends around you is one of the best ways to combat feelings of anxiety and depression when you’re feeling overwhelmed. Often, when you’re feeling down there is a tendency to drop relationships and opt for isolation. This is counterproductive.

Rather, you should focus on reaching out to those who care about you, especially if they have expertise in a particular area you’re struggling with. Make the time to talk to a friend who is a particularly good listener and has a track record of doling out practical, positive advice.

Chances are you will feel so much better after a cup of coffee and a heart to heart chat. You’ll feel more relaxed and focused. They’ll provide you with some much needed perspective on your problem. They’ll take that ‘end of the world’ issue that you’re wrestling with and break it down into manageable parts that you can work on.

The next time you’re facing a problem, whether personal or work related, go through the following steps to ensure that you get the support you so desperately need:

Step 1

What is the issue or problem you’re facing? Can you easily breakdown and articulate what is going on? What is even better is if you can analyze a situation and identify where problems might arise – you can cut problems off before they happen. Taking a preemptive approach will minimize future difficulties.

Step 2

Two questions here: What do you need and who do you need? Once you’ve taken the problem apart, you probably have a better sense of what and who you need. Identify resources and individuals who will help you with your task, whether it’s building a house or recovering from the loss of your spouse.

Step 3

Simply ask for support. So many people are scared to ask. This is a HUGE problem. Just ask! Clearly explain your problem and why you think the person you’re talking to can help you out. Most people will be completely flattered that you turned to them for support and advice. People like to feel useful. And if for some reason they are unable to help you out, chances are they’ll be able to point you in the direction of someone else who can.

Step 4

Accept the help. Some people ask for help, but then they feel awkward or even resentful during or after someone has assisted them. Relax, accept it and say “thank you.” There will be plenty of chances for you to reciprocate. Let the person helping you out know that you’ll be there for them should the need arise. That is a wonderful gift to them. It’s nice to know that someone has your back.

Let us know how a strong support network has helped you through a rough patch!

When was the last time you saw your mailbox EMPTY? Seriously - end your day without having a single e-mail waiting for you and being able to start fresh the coming day?

A trivial question, some would say, doesn't matter if you have 1000 or 0 e-mails in your mailbox, you can always only read the ones that matter to you and ignore the rest, right?

Well, according to psychologists your over-flooded inbox might actually be the number one reason for your decreased productivity. Nothing wrong in being informed, but the amount of information that is being bombed at you every day simply exceeds your brains capacity to process it. Much too often we become paralyzed by knowing too much and not being able to decide anymore what is truly important for us.

When you think about it then checking your e-mail is the single most common habit that your parents didn't have -- yet for you logging in into your mailbox and browsing your e-mails has become so automatic and frequent that you rarely even ask WHY or consider seriously HOW you're going to process the information that you find.

If you're like most of the people then you almost never end your day with having 0 e-mails in your inbox. Most likely you have some e-mails that you've read, a whole bunch you haven't read and don't intend to either, some that you've actually written a reply to -- and some you just don't know what to do with (you probably decide to read them in the future -- which almost never happens).

It's a mess! And it's cutting down your productivity more than anything else.

Fortunately there's a way how to turn this disguised energy vampire into a well-tamed pet of yours, in other words: how to create a simple system that reduces significantly the time your spend in your inbox and gives the control over the information you consume right back to you.

It's called the 0-inbox system.

A productivity expert Merlin Mann explains the system in his highly insightful presentation. According to Mann the 2 most valuable resources that you have are your attention and time. You have a limited number of hours and minutes every day and no matter how much you'd like you can't add anything extra to it.

So Mann asks a question: "What is most important to you?" No matter what's your answer -- your family, project you're working on right now, your cat -- your mailbox actually reflects your priorities. If someone would check what has been going on in your mailbox in the past couple of weeks that person could tell a lot about where your actual priorities lie.

This is how crucial it is to actually have your inbox under YOUR control -- not in the hands of all those people who are mailing you every day.

If you still feel that having 0 e-mails -- and yet having all the important things done -- is rather daydreaming, you might find Mann's ideas sort of revolutionary. However as with most of the good things in life -- they're rather simple and obvious.