How many times do you think we need to try something before you give up? We have all known some who give up after just one try and others who will try 10 times, 100 times or more, being diligent about doing the task at hand. There is a book on mastery that studied many different fields of skill and the studies show that for a person to master anything to the highest level – it takes 10,000 times.
When I received my new kata / form in tae kwon do – our instructor said that we will not know the form until it has been performed 1,000 times. I believe that to be true. But sometimes as we are trying to learn something we can get frustrated and feel like giving up – but really that is the time to try again and it may be the time to ask for additional help.
When we ask for help we are not asking someone to do the task for us. We are asking them to share their experience with us. What did they find helpful, what mistakes did they make and how did they overcome them? If we are having trouble in one area or another, it may call on us to approach different people to gather as much knowledge as possible – so we can be self reliant.
If we are a child, our most important resource is and should be our parents, though we can also call on our teachers and sometimes even our friends in seeking this knowledge. But in the end we have to perform ourselves, it is our homework, our chore, our goal no matter our age. We should ask for help only when we need it.