Hey #069: Are you helping others? Or trying to fix them (unknowingly)?

7 differences between helping and fixing others 👇

Recently, one of the members of the HeyCommunication community shared an incident about them trying to help someone.

As the conversation proceeded in the group, they shared their struggle while trying to help others. I read that struggle and it took me back to my college friendships and my first relationship. And I said to myself:

The fragments of the memories in which I used to fix my friends/ then-partner, thinking that I'm being a great friend/ partner by doing my best to help them, started playing in my head.

I recollected myself while realizing that the mentioned struggle about helping had "fixing" written over it like how it used to happen with me.

So I typed a long message in the group highlighting the differences between helping others and fixing others.

Since I realize that there are many ways in which our interpretation of the word "help" can be misleading, I'm sharing 7 differences (elaboratively) with you today. I hope it helps (pun unintended 😂) you with new perspectives.

1. Help is all about the present. Whereas, fixing remains fixated on the future.

Help cares about what’s in the present. It doesn’t derive its significance from an outcome in the future.

This is how it reflects itself:

"I'll do my best to listen to them, empathize with them and be there for them right now. That’s all I’m concerned about."

While fixing, the focus remains on the outcome:

"I want to solve their problem anyhow so I'll not waste any time and come to the solutions that I know."

With such emphasis on solving the other person’s problem, the focus required to listen and the intention needed to empathize and to be there for someone transmute into the fixing mode of “I don’t care if the way I’m helping is actually helping them or not, I just wanna solve their problem.”

Can you recall a very common example of such a scenario?

It’s the time when you want to be listened to. But the other person doesn’t stop telling you what you should and shouldn’t do to deal with your current situation.

That’s fixing! Here the person misses the point that the solution they want to give you might just be listening itself. But they can’t see it, unless they bring their attention to the present.

2. Help is asked for. Whereas, fixing is unasked for.

I read it somewhere:

The worst kind of help is the unasked help.

However, I understand there exist exceptions when we try to help others even when they may not have necessarily asked us to help them.

But in the case of fixing, we always rush to "help" even when (rather, especially when) we're not asked for it. In fact, the more we’re unasked for help, the more we do everything that we can to help (I mean, fix).

3. Help doesn't try to gain anything. Whereas, fixing does.

While genuinely helping, we don't try to gain something out of it. We help because we want to. Period.

But via fixing, we're always trying to gain one thing or the other:

• giving ourselves different sorts of validation

• using it as a way to beat our thoughts of abandonment

• assessing our "usefulness" and hence "worthiness"

• etc.

4. Help respects others’ boundaries. Whereas, fixing tries to invade them.

When we help others, we realize it's about THEM. So we respect everything that comes along with it – their feelings, thoughts, opinions, preferences, etc.

We don't keep drilling our solutions in their reality when they show or tell us that it's not what they need. Instead, we listen to what they need and take a step back without any hesitation.

For we believe that it's not about us, but about them. And that we may know better about how to help them, but we can still be wrong.

Fixing doesn't understand this concept. It operates with the notion that only we know what is right and wrong for the person we're helping. And that we can never be wrong in that assessment.

The closer a relationship is, the stronger this tendency can be.

When we forget the boundary between "what we think is right for them" and "letting them tell us what they think is right for them" – it's a good sign that the attempt to help is now becoming an attempt to fix.

5. Help doesn't criticize. Whereas, fixing does.

When we do our best to help someone and don’t end up helping them, we feel bad. This is a natural reaction.

But in the case of fixing, this reaction aggravates into criticism. We take the failure of not being able to help someone personally and criticize ourselves harshly.

Help goes like:

"I wanna help them. But if I don't end up helping them, that's okay too. I'll do my best, regardless."

And fixing approaches this with:

"I have to help them in any way. And if I don't end up helping them, that'll make me a failure. So I'll do everything it takes."

The moment we take the act of helping someone personally, it no longer remains about the person being helped, but about us. And that’s exactly what fixing does.

6. Help doesn't come at the expense of the person helping. Whereas, fixing does.

You can't pour from an empty cup. Especially while helping someone, it becomes more important that your cup is not empty, if not full. Hence, help doesn't come at the expense of the person helping.

Fixing comes at the expense of the person trying to help. It justifies this by labeling the person who is helping and totally neglecting themselves while doing so as "selfless." And if that person cares about themselves for a while, fixing labels them as "selfish."

Help doesn't believe in such categorization. Help understands that there may be times when you cannot genuinely tend to yourself while helping someone, and it's okay. It doesn't make you selfless. And in the times when you tend to yourself while helping someone, it doesn't make you selfish.

7. Help doesn't run with hidden fears. Whereas, fixing always has hidden fears beneath it.

"If I don't help them, ____"

In the case of helping, this blank is generally filled with:

• they may get hurt…

• I know I’ll feel bad later…

• I’ll keep thinking about how they’re doing…

In the case of fixing, the blank is usually filled with fear. Sometimes, that fear can be paralyzing.

"If I don't help them, ____"

• they'll not need me anymore…and then they’ll leave me eventually…

• it’ll show my inability to help…gosh…it’ll prove that I’m selfish afterall…  

• how will it be evident to people that I’m such a good friend…

Notice how these fears are directed at deep-rooted fears and insecurities: fear of abandonment, lack of self-worth, self-trust issues, validation challenges, etc. Fixing always triggers such fears and insecurities.

(Additional read: How to listen to others without trying to fix them?)

Like everything, some exceptions exist in the case of helping and fixing. These exceptions make it a bit difficult to understand if what we're doing is called helping or fixing someone. When you encounter such exceptions, worry not. Lead with your awareness. Know that:

Use curiosity. Ask yourself – Is it possible that you may be trying to fix people while trying to help them?

Please don't judge yourself if the answer comes as a yes. We all have been there. Some of us are getting aware. Some of us are recovering from our fixing tendencies. We all are learning.

You got this!

🦋

I'll see you next Thursday,

Ashi 

(drop me a hi on LinkedIn)

ps: This is the HeyCommunication community that I mentioned in the beginning of this piece. I welcome you to join us 😊