According to the INC Magazine article 7 Things You Must Quit Doing to Be More Productive This Year written by Jeff Haden, we must stop turning down the help you need.

"Productive people ask for help. They know asking for help is a sign of strength--and is the key to achieving a lot more."

Not to generalize by genders, but typically men have a more difficult time asking for help. Although the GPS navigator on our Smart Phones has reduced this problem, men are still reluctant to ask for directions. In fact, "26 percent of men -- wait at least half an hour before asking for directions, with a stubborn 12 percent refusing to ask a stranger for help at all. In fact, "The average male  drives an extra 276 miles every year as a result of being lost -- the equivalent to a journey from Cincinnati to Nashville ( ABC News)."

Sadly, those who reluctantly ask for help, often wait until the situation has become dire or the deadline looms adding stress to the equation. We must ask for help early and often.

So why is asking for help so difficult?  ALINA TUGEND wrote about this in the NY Times a few years ago. She says:

"There are many reasons people fear requesting assistance, primary among them not wanting to seem weak, needy or incompetent (any of these ring a bell?).

"There is a tendency to act as if it's a deficiency," said Garret Keizer, author of "Help: The Original Human Dilemma" (HarperCollins, 2004). "That is exacerbated if a business environment is highly competitive within as well as without. There is an understandable fear that if you let your guard down, you'll get hurt, or that this information you don't know how to do will be used against you."

In fact, asking for help is one of the 15 things insanely productive people do differently according to Benjamin Hardy:

Insanely productive people know they don't have all the answers. They aren't afraid to ask for directions when lost. They aren't too proud to say when they're having a hard time.

Here are a few tips to help you be more productive in the coming months:

• Surround yourself with people with strong skills that complement yours
• Ask for help before you need it
• Embrace the idea of collaborative efforts 
• Understand and accept that you don't know it all and that is okay