The Hidden Power of Asking for Help

Understanding why help feels hard—and how it can bring us closer together.

I ask this question in every Enneagram typing interview: "How easy or difficult is it for you to ask for help?" And I have yet to meet someone that doesn't take an incredibly long pause before saying some version of, "I'm not good at asking for help."

I get it. Whether you're in a workplace, a relationship or with friends or family, asking for help can often feel like admitting defeat. It can feel risky—like handing over control, exposing a weakness, or creating a burden for someone else.

The reality is that asking for help is complicated for so many reasons. When it comes to asking for help, each of us approach it differently, each of us respond differently, all of us have different experiences with rejection or support and ALL of us have different stories about the potential outcomes playing over and over again in our mind.

The Enneagram symbol can help us understand these differences in a few new ways.

The Law of Three

The Enneagram is a circle for a reason—it represents movement, connection, and balance. But within that circle, the inner triangle (points 3, 6, and 9) represents something we call the Law of Three—a fundamental principle that explains how transformation occurs.

The Law of Three teaches that change occurs when three forces interact:

1. Active force – The initiating energy, the thing that pushes forward.

2. Passive force – The resistance, challenge, or response to the first force.

3. Reconciling force – The third element that integrates the two and creates something new.

You can apply this law to anything! When you're baking a cake, the active force mixes the ingredients together (that's you), the passive force, the heat of the oven, reacts with the ingredients and the reconciling force is found as the ingredients and heat transform into something delicious that didn't exist before.

We can also apply this law to our current subject matter: asking for help.

1. Active force – Asking for help: Someone takes the step to reach out.

2. Passive force – Responding to help: The other person decides how to engage—offering support, rejecting it, or reshaping the request.

3. Reconciling force – Creating trust: The way we navigate this exchange either builds trust and collaboration—or reinforces distance and self-reliance.

I'm sure you've already seen where the fear will come in ... "The other person decides how to engage."

When we ask for help, we initiate a force that leaves the realm of what we can control. We don’t know how the other person will respond. Will they say yes? Will they judge us? Will they use it against us later?

That uncertainty is the energy of the second force - the response. It holds the power of resistance, disruption, and unpredictability. And because we can't control it, we often avoid the process altogether.

It may feel like the second force is the scary part but actually, it is the third part. If we never initiate, we won't get a response and we will never get to the third force—the place where something new is created, a relationship is transformed and trust is built. The paradox is that by avoiding the discomfort of asking, we also avoid the possibility of deeper connection and ultimately a possible "something" that is yet to be discovered.

When we look at "asking for help" through the Law of Three, we see that help is more than a transaction. It’s a process that creates something entirely new.

The Opportunity in Asking for Help

When we understand the Law of Three, we see that asking for help is more than a simple request—it’s an interaction that holds the potential for growth. The first force (initiating the ask) requires courage because we don’t control the second force (the response). This is where our fears live—the fear of rejection, judgment, or unmet expectations. But when we engage anyway, we create the conditions for the third force—trust, collaboration, connection and something new that has never been seen before.

So, maybe the real question isn’t just "how easy or difficult is it for you to ask for help?" but "how willing are you to move through the discomfort—to trust that something better can come from it?"