Doing everything yourself: what to do to make help possible

Doing everything yourself may be something you want to do or it may be something you feel you need to do. After all, if you don't do it, who will? For example, many people who do everything themselves are better at taking care of another person than they are at taking care of themselves.

After all, a day only lasts 24 hours, and if you are then going to do everything yourself and not ask for help, it can take quite a toll on you. It doesn't matter if this is something you want or if this is something where you feel you have to do it.

Wanting to do everything yourself

Wanting to do everything yourself is related to your need for control[1]. To some extent, everyone does have a need for control. For example, you want to choose how you live and not be lived by your work or by your family.

The extent to which you want to do everything on your own varies greatly from person to person. It’s helpful for your work if you can handle enough on your own. For your own mental health and to reduce the risk of burnout, it’s important to strike a balance between your desire to do everything yourself and the extent to which that’s feasible at work[2].

So are you not allowed to do anything yourself and would like to do more? Then mention this to someone at work. On the contrary, do you have to do everything yourself but would like to do less? Then report this to someone at work as well.

Do everything yourself and take care

Even as a caregiver, you may feel like you have to do everything yourself. For example, you have to figure out for yourself how something goes with insurance or which doctor your beloved family member or friend needs to see, and this can be incredibly tough[3].

Even if you do get some kind of roadmap on what to do when your family member is back home after a hospitalization, all the work can still feel hard for you.

In addition, as a working woman with a family, you may feel like you have to do everything. You have to work and take care of your family. In many dual-earner households, women mostly sacrifice their leisure time and even work hours, because men are often (unconsciously) somewhat traditionally minded anyway and stay working long hours and busy with their leisure activities[4] such as playing soccer or something similar.

Doing everything yourself in your business

Many entrepreneurs try to do everything themselves. If you’re just starting out, that makes sense, because you don’t yet have the resources to outsource certain tasks. Besides, as an entrepreneur, it often doesn’t help to do everything yourself[5].

After all, doing everything yourself can cause you to suffer from an excessive workload. In addition, you then also sacrifice time from other parts of your life such as time you can spend with your family.

At the same time, however, if you suffer from anxiety, it makes sense to let go of some control over your business and to trust the people to whom you delegate or outsource tasks[6].

Breaking everything yourself

So doing everything yourself can come from many reasons. Circumstances make you feel like you have to do everything yourself or you just want to be in control of the situation and don't trust other people with the tasks you are currently doing yourself.

In both cases, the risk of burnout looms large. So it’s time to break the pattern of doing everything yourself.

Asking for help in your personal life

Especially if you feel like you have to do everything on your own, it’s important to double-check this by asking for help. Within your family, a conversation with your partner and (older) children can help you, for example, redistribute household chores so that you don’t have to do everything yourself.

Your kids can put their own laundry in the laundry basket and learn to clean their room. Then all you have to do afterwards is double check that and maybe connect the dots. In the process, children also learn how to clean up, which in turn will come in handy in the rest of their lives.

Maybe even taking the trash to the street is something your children can do, then all you and your partner have to do is point this out to your children.

In addition, you and your partner can pull out calendars and compare how you are doing now with all the tasks, free time and time spent on household matters. Keep track of that for a week and, if necessary, ask your partner to do the same, so that afterwards you can compare how good the division is in the house and make new arrangements so that it is a little more fair.

Possibly have your partner (and read yourself) read the booklet the five languages of love and tell him/her that your love language is rendering services 😉 . Then perhaps your partner will experience doing chores or certain household tasks no longer as chores, but more as loving gifts to you. A good way of priming.

As a family caregiver, it can also sometimes be difficult to have time for yourself, while as a family caregiver you can often use some help. For example, ask other family members or friends of the person you care for to help, or ask your own friends if they might be able to do something for you sometime, not necessarily for the person you care for, but all help is welcome.

You can also explore with a hypnotherapist why you feel you have to do everything yourself and that asking for help is an absolute no-go.

With regression, for example, you can go back to the first moment when you felt that in your personal life you should not ask for help and do everything yourself. These are often moments from your childhood, because this is when you determine what the "rules" of life are and how everything works.

Usually we don't think about this much further consciously, but regression allows you to look back very consciously for a moment and update that memory with your current knowledge. This immediately makes everything feel different and you no longer get a stomach ache from the idea of asking people for help for your private life.

Next, you can also get a post-hypnotic suggestion. This deals with behavior after the hypnosis session, about how easy it is to ask for help when you find you need it.

Asking for help in your business

Whether you work somewhere or own your business, asking for help is one of the best ways to solve problems in your business. For employed people, accessibility and trust in the person to whom to ask for help are important factors in actually asking for help when they need it[7].

If you find it difficult to ask for help in your professional life, you can visualize this to make it a little easier. If that doesn’t help and you continue to feel anxious, you can use hypnosis to explore and change your beliefs about asking for professional help.

Sometimes just repeating an awkward belief in a crazy voice to ridicule the belief is enough to remove the fear of asking for help.

Once that has succeeded, you can repeat other more positive suggestions that install a "new" helping belief in you such as:

"Asking for help just shows that you are strong," says Dr. K. K., "and that you are strong."

"It's better for everyone if a problem is solved as quickly as possible," he said.

These are just examples. Depending on your fears and beliefs about asking for help, a hypnotherapist may offer you other suggestions to make it easier to ask for help in the future.

As an entrepreneur, it can also be important to delegate tasks so that solves your time constraint problem. What is often the problem with entrepreneurs is that certain tasks you perform are linked in your subconscious to your identity as an entrepreneur, making it difficult for you to outsource those tasks[8].

With hypnosis, you can look at how you shape your identity as a business owner and update it so that you actually do find it easier to transfer certain tasks to someone else in your business, allowing you to enjoy the rest of your life more.

Would you like to learn more about how hypnosis can help? Then join the free online masterclass on hypnosis or attend a seminar.

Want to get started right away to help yourself and others? Then enroll in one of our training programs.

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