This makes me think...

There comes a time when you have to admit that you can't do it alone.  You don't have the information or the skill or the time or the will.  Yet you keep hanging on to the task, thinking you can force progress. Well, progress doesn't respond to force. It's time to ask for help...


Years ago I took an editorial position at a new company. When I attended my first editorial lunch... I let it slip that I was taking work home almost nightly.  When our editorial director heard that, he explained what I should do when a project was slipping behind and how asking for help early was better than getting overwhelmed down the line.  Another editor, a woman who had been there a few years, said to me, "Vinita, look in the mirror and repeat this to yourself: 'I am not Jesus.'" Well, everyone at the table burst into laughter at that bit of advice, but I have remembered it every since.


It's good to remind yourself that you do not have superpowers. Drop whatever else you are doing, and figure out what kind of help you need-- then ask for it.

---Vinita Hampton Wright, Simple Acts of Moving Forward, (2009).