Ask For Help, Not More Time

The biggest learning curve as a graphic designer in my early 20s, was asking for help. Although this sounds obvious, unfortunately, when your three E’s are dialled to eleven:

→ Effort

→ Enthusiasm

→ Ego

Asking for help can feel like complete and utter failure. When in reality the opposite is true. Not asking for help, especially when you’re starting out, will guarantee failure.

→ Failure to make a deadline

→ Failure to stay on budget

→ Failure to learn skills and earn trust?

Not to mention, failure to do the one and only reason you’re in the room in the first place—your job. So if all you need to remember from this article is ‘ask for help, not more time’, thanks for reading.

But if you’re anything like me, knowing you should do something doesn’t always get through. Experiencing the consequences of not doing something however…

Late-Late

Now, please don’t get me wrong me, I’m all-in on:

→ Fake it, till you make it

→ Figure it out in the edit

→ Fudge it over the line

But when real people have to cancel their plans to fix your mistake, those F-words don't apply. A mistake that would have been easily avoidable, if you’d taken responsibility and said, ‘I know how to do this, but I need some help with that.’

Instead, you're in panic mode. Where nothing gets done well—if at all—and when you finally admit defeat…it’s already too late.

And not the fake kind of late project managers bake into jobs, because they know what they’re doing. You’re late-late, and the client is waiting on the other end of your mistake. Angry.

That feeling is a million times worse than a temporary bruised ego, because you had to ask how to artwork a logo.

The Bullpen

I get it. Early doors, you want to make a name for yourself. To enter the bullpen of hot-blooded designers, all competing to think of the best idea to get in front of the client. But if your strategy to get in, is to disproportionately over-index on your skills, knowledge and capabilities—you won’t stay there very long.

Because unfortunately, no amount of enthusiasm, effort and ego can manifest what needs to be done, when you don’t know what you are doing.

Opportunity Costs

If you continue this approach and begin to wonder why:

→ You don’t get called into the brainstorms

→ You don’t get to prove yourself on a pitch

→ You don’t get good work for your portfolio?

While harbouring a growing perception that you're spending a lot more time than usual, helping other designers finish their work.

The cause of these symptoms is sad, but simple. People don't trust you to execute, and management has nerfed your responsibilities.?

Why? Because no business trusted with delivering six-figures worth of ideas, wants to explain to a client why their ‘cute little global rebrand’ will just have to wait. All because of some bright-eyed, bushy-tailed bottleneck with a bruised ego, jeopardising the whole operation.

So, speaking from experience: Ask for help, not more time.

Connect Tristan Dunbar Follow Tristan Idea on X @tristanidea