One of the worst things that you can do to yourself is refuse to ask questions. People don’t ask questions for many reasons. They might be worried about the answer, they might not want to look foolish, and they might think taking help makes them worse at what they’re doing.
This is very wrong, and in fact, most people who have become successful are consistently asking questions to get whatever help they can take. Asking questions doesn’t make you stupid, and it certainly doesn’t mean that you’re bad at your job.
It would be far more foolish to proceed with your work despite not knowing if what you’re doing is going to be viable or not. By not asking questions, you’re going to be stuck flailing around trying to figure out what to do for much longer than you’d need to.
Keep in mind that while asking questions is almost always a good thing, it can get to a point where others around you might be annoyed that you’re not taking quite enough initiative.
This essentially means that you shouldn’t always go to asking questions as soon as you encounter any kind of resistance, but rather do some of your own research first. For example, let’s say you were experiencing a problem with your computer.
Instead of just asking someone straight away, you could look up and try a few different solutions. Then, if those didn’t work, you could go ask them about it and let them know what you already tried.
This helps them narrow things down faster, and it also shows them that you already put in some initiative. In more complicated circumstances, you ask people about how they would approach a situation that you’re facing.
Explain to them what you were thinking about doing, and what your concerns are about how everything would work out afterwards. This gives them more context to use, meaning they’ll have an easier time answering the question, and you’ll get a much better response out of them.
When you’re thinking about asking someone a question, have it sort of systematically planned out and phrased in such a way that it’s clear. The last thing you want is to be going back and forth with someone giving them more and more information each time while they struggle to answer your question effectively.
It wastes everyone’s time all due to a lack of clarity. Be upfront and transparent, but also remain respectful and level headed, because you might not always get the answer you want.
