Three Words Strong Women Struggle to Say

When my children were younger, I would often watch them struggle with something they were determined to figure out on their own.

I would ask, “Do you need help?” And the answer was usually, “No, I don’t need any help.” I started replying, “All you have to do is say, ‘I need help.’”

Sometimes, when they finally asked, I would step in and do what they could not do for themselves. Other times, they did not need me to take over at all. They simply needed a little guidance so they could keep moving forward.

As they grew, I watched something change. Instead of struggling until they were completely frustrated, they became more comfortable coming to me and saying, “Mommy, I need help.”

Now that they are young adults, I still remind them of the same thing. You do not have to tell me the entire story first. You do not have to prove that you have tried everything. You do not have to worry about judgment or prepare yourself for a sermon.

You can simply say, “I need help.”

Three simple words. Yet, for so many strong women, they can be incredibly difficult to say.

We are accustomed to being the dependable ones. We solve problems. We anticipate needs. We care for our families, lead our teams, encourage our friends, manage responsibilities, and find a way to keep things moving.

Those are beautiful qualities. But somewhere along the way, strength can quietly become self-sufficiency. We can begin to believe that being strong means being able to handle everything ourselves. And we forget that the Bible says, “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.” Not, “I can do all things on my own in my human strength.”

Here are a few things I encourage you to remember about asking for help:

1. Needing help does not make you less capable.

We sometimes treat the need for support as evidence that we are not as strong as we thought we were. But there will be seasons when the assignment grows, circumstances change, or our capacity simply looks different than it did before.

Recognizing that does not erase everything you are capable of doing. In fact, it may require even more self-awareness to acknowledge what you cannot or should not continue carrying alone.

2. You do not have to earn the right to ask for help.

I think this is one reason the lesson with my children has stayed with me. I wanted them to know they did not have to reach complete frustration before they could come to me.

Yet, as adults, how often do we do exactly that? We wait until we are exhausted. Until we have tried every possible solution. Until the deadline is too close, the burden is too heavy, or resentment has already started to build.

We tell ourselves, “I should be able to handle this.” But asking sooner does not mean you gave up too quickly. Sometimes it means you were wise enough to recognize what you needed before everything became unmanageable.

3. Asking for help does not mean handing over your responsibility.

Help does not always mean someone else takes over. Sometimes you need perspective, expertise, another set of hands, or someone who can see the situation more clearly because she is not standing in the middle of it.

You may still be responsible for the decision, the work, or the next step. Receiving support simply means you do not have to arrive there alone.

4. Strong women need safe places too.

I made a commitment to my children that when they came to me for help, my first response would not be judgment. I wanted them to know there was a place where they could acknowledge a need without first defending why they had one.

We need those kinds of relationships as adults. We need people who can offer wisdom without making us feel small, who can hold space for us, who remind us who we are while also giving us permission to admit when something is hard. Being the strong one does not mean you should never need a safe place to land.

5. Asking for help may be part of how you become stronger.

Growth has a way of revealing the limits of what worked in our last season. What you could manage before may not be sustainable now. The responsibilities may be greater. The decisions may carry more weight. God may be expanding your life in ways that require you to expand your definition of strength along with it.

Maybe strength in this season is not proving how much you can hold, but knowing what to release, allowing someone to come alongside you, or having enough confidence in who you are that needing support no longer feels like a threat to your identity.

Isaiah reminds us that God gives power to the faint and increases strength when ours is depleted. There is something comforting to me about that. He does not shame us for reaching the end of our strength. He meets us there.

Can we learn to offer ourselves the same grace? You can be strong and still be tired.

You can be capable and still need guidance. You can be the person others depend on and still need someone to come alongside you.

Friend, sometimes, the strongest thing you can say is, “I need help.”

Be Well,

The LIPSTICK Coach