Venting Vs. Asking for Help

One of my biggest frustrations in life is that I don’t know when people are venting vs asking for help. Let me rephrase and put the responsibility on me. I often hear people venting as them asking for my help. This causes friction and frustration in my life.

I am a people pleaser. It’s something I am aware of and am working on.

I don’t like to see or hear about people who are uncomfortable. Their discomfort makes me uncomfortable. Their tension makes me tense.

I also know how to do things or have a tenacity to learn. I take their complaints as a challenge, ask, or expectation to help and support. I burden myself with their responsibilities and make them my own.

Have you ever gone in so deep into people pleasing mode only to come up for air a few days later realizing you are know focused/doing on something you don’t care about or just don’t want to do?

It’s not even learning to say no, it’s learning that a complaint is not a suggestion box.

Why am I feeling this way though? What is the deeper issue?

Sometimes you get a reputation as a doer/problem solver. Sometimes people know that you will help them and they come to you for help.

And so they come to you and throw stuff on your plate hoping you can help make sense of it. And so you dive in enthusiastically, ready to support and people please.

But what then happens is you realize they don’t even know what they want. They are just trying to have you solve a problem that exists without even learning about the problem or solution.

To take a step back – I feel like a general contractor for problems. People come to me because shit is broken and they don’t want to, know how to, or feel empowered to fix it.

And that’s a shitty feeling. It feels enabling.

Yesterday I was talking to someone about a problem I was helping them solve for them. I showed them my solution and it wasn’t what they were looking for. When I dug in a bit more and asked what they were looking for, they said they didn’t know.

That is what is really rubbing me the wrong way today. I didn’t like that exchange. I didn’t like that in the moment I listed out a myriad of other ideas or solutions. I wish I held my ground more.

You don’t know what you need? Fair enough. This is what we talked about before. If this doesn’t help you, then let me know when you know what you’d like. Talk to you later.

Punt the issue back on them. It’s their problem anyways.

Or just learn to listen. Learn to hear them and say that sounds hard. Suppress the need to help. Live in the discomfort with them. That’s more powerful than solving the problem and enabling them anyways.

Otherwise, they’ll get used to it and keep coming back for more.