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Your goals are difficult to achieve without genuine and kind help from others along the way. Our faith in humanity is propelled by people who spend their time and energy to improve a situation that the less privileged find themselves in. All people are capable of being kind, but kindness is buried deep within some. This article is not meant to encourage you to be manipulative in order to get people to help you. It is written with the goal of uncovering others’ kindness, which they may have numbed down due to their personal experiences in life.
Unlocking Kindness Within Others
The instances that put a dent in our faith in humanity, are incidents of people not coming to the aid for those who desperately need it. Our hearts are shattered when we see people needing help and not receiving it. It is a dark reality of many happenings occurring as you read this article right now. There are people right now who are being left to fend for themselves by those in control. There are people crying out for help and being ignored.
The human psyche can takes turns for the worst in more people than you may think. Each one of us is capable of ignoring those who desperately need help. However, the question that must be posed is this: Can the people pleading for help increase their chances of receiving it? This article is meant to be a tool for you to use, when others are hesitant to help you during an unmanageable situation.
Prime Them in Unobvious Ways
Depending on the domain which you need help in, you’re likely going to turn to someone who is well versed in situations such as yours. The concept of priming is utilized by many without them knowing. In this regard, it is the act of subtly reminding people about their skill in the area you seek help in. The following example is a simple, and rather obvious, attempt at priming the individual prior to asking for help: “Your resume keeps getting callbacks from prospective employers. Can you help me with mine?”
Try to prime those you seek help from in unobvious ways. Be subtle about your attempts to remind them of their skills, and slowly build up their pride. Priming people prior to asking for help works because you establish a reputation for them to uphold. If you’re told that you’re a great writer, then you’d be more likely to respond to the request of editing someone’s important email. As soon as you think of a way to prime someone prior to receiving help from them, take a minute to think about a more subtle way to do it. The point to remember, is to not make your act of priming individuals obvious. An obvious attempt to build up someone’s pride will be interpreted as sneaky behavior, and their desire to help you will decrease.
Priming someone doesn’t have to involve them being the focus of your dialogue. You can merely speak to someone about topics similar to that in which you seek help. Allow them to express their thoughts and opinions about the topic in casual conversation. To continue with the example of priming someone who is a good writer, you can simply begin speaking to them about writing in general. Ask them to tell you about their favorite writers, favorite books, and all things to do with writing. Give them an avenue to express their interests in the topic. This way, you’d be able to use their own words in your plead for help. The casual conversations you have with people are opportunities for people to prime themselves for you. They’ll express their thoughts and opinions while talking about themselves. The act of priming someone to help you can merely mean steering a conversation in the right direction and listening.
Challenge Them
The concept of competition is rather misunderstood by many. When we speak about competition, our minds may visualize three candidates for a job, sitting in a room and vehemently scheming up ways to impress their interviewer. We also envision sports, and corporations competing against one another. Road rage is driven by the desire to be ahead and undisturbed in one’s experience of driving. The more you visualize how competition manifests itself in the world around us, the more granular you go. Teammates on various teams compete against one another for positions on a team. Siblings compete with one another to get a greater share of affirmation from their parents, and neighbors compete with each other about who works harder on their yard.
Competition is an effective driver of behavior, and challenges elicit competitive traits to come alive. Setting challenges for those you seek help from seems to be an effective way to increase the chances of them helping you out.
Your attempts do not need to be explicit, akin to, “I bet you won’t want to help me, but I’ll ask anyway.” Don’t be rude in your setting of challenges.
An effective challenge would go something along the lines of, “I could go to a random accountant to file my taxes, but I thought I’d ask you for help, as you’re probably just as good. Do you think you can help me out?” The phrase, “…probably just as good,” is one which would do well in eliciting a challenge and encouraging a competitive mindset in the person you’re seeking help from.