Are you helping or enabling?

Do you know the difference between the two?

Listener Greg Parsons recently asked us what the difference is. On this episode, we’re breaking it down and explaining how you can tell if you’re helping or enabling.

Helping is setting clear expectations and sticking to them. It is teaching somebody how to do something and then letting them go off on their own to do it. When you work with someone to make them responsible, you are helping them.

Enabling, on the other hand, is doing something for somebody that they should have done themselves. It is not enforcing the expectations that we have set. 

When we enable, we’re giving people permission. We’re telling them that we actually didn’t mean what we said. 

In the long run, this hurts them. We need tough love instead. By helping the person take responsibility we are showing them that we care.

If you have a problem that’s recurring, you might actually be the problem. By seeing the same behavior over and over again and doing nothing about it, you’re allowing it to continue to happen. 

Stop taking the easy way out and letting things go. Instead, educate, inspire, and hold people accountable. In this way, you’re helping them.

If you want to hear more from Jody and I, tune in to our guest episodes on the podcast How That Happened. You can find Jody’s episode here and my episode here.