Ask AltoTRY · 12 MIN
Care Without Disappearing
TAIU
Care that does not erase the person providing it.
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Tool 85 · Develop yourself
How do I help this person without quietly taking over their life?
A guided 15 to 19 minutes conversation, here in TAIU. Help that does things for someone is still costly, however kindly meant.
What did they actually ask for?
Doing it for them is the quickest and the most expensive.
What is this costing you?
What you'll look at
- 01The ask
- 02The list
- 03The line
- 04The cost
A note from Mark
There's a difference between doing something for somebody, doing it with them and making it possible for them to do it themselves.
The first one is the quickest, so it wins, and after a while it's the only one left.
I always ask what the person actually requested. Usually a fraction of what's being done.
And I ask what it's costing the helper, because that's the part nobody counts until it's already been paid.
What you'll get
This will not sort you into a personality type.It will give you answers about your own life that you can test.
01
The ask
02
The list
03
The line
04
What to hand back
+
Your TAIU handover: a summary of what the conversation found, written so you can take it with you.
See everything included ↓
- 01Who you are helping
- 02What they have actually asked for
- 03What you are currently doing
- 04What is helping
- 05What is taking over
- 06What is costing you
- 07What to hand back
- 08The rival reading
- 09What deserves protecting
- 10Where this goes next
When you finish
Bring it back to your tree.
Your tree is where TAIU keeps a picture of your whole life, in parts like work, money and health.
At the end, the conversation asks how Family and belonging feels for you right now, in your own words. It also asks what, if anything, would feel different. Nothing changes on your tree unless you say it changes.
The conversation writes this summary for you. Keep the sheet, print it or paste it into My Tree. Nothing from the conversation is stored by TAIU.
- Session
- Date
- The part of life this belongs to
- How you described it
- What would feel different
- What we found
- The alternative we tested
- What deserves protecting
- What should change, if anything
- Next actions
- What to notice or find out
- What remains unresolved
What now?
01 · Save it
What they asked for.
02 · Test it
Hand one specific thing back this month, and say you are doing it.
See more ↓
What I would do
- 01
Write the full list, including the invisible parts.
- 02
Mark what was requested and what was assumed.
- 03
Ask which items they could do with more time rather than more help.
- 04
Price the cost to you honestly.
- 05
Hand one thing back, and say so out loud rather than withdrawing quietly.
Test it
- 01
What did they actually ask for?
- 02
What could they do themselves, with time?
- 03
What is this costing you?
The alternative
The usual reading is that a helper needs to step back. Sometimes the help is well judged, the other person genuinely cannot do these things at the moment and the real issue is that nobody is helping the helper. The reverse also happens. Somebody has been managing another adult's life for years out of love, and both of them have forgotten what that adult can do.
Think about this
- What they actually asked for.
- What you have taken on without being asked.
- What they could do themselves, given time.
- What this is costing you.
- What you would hand back first.
Take this to Ask Mark
You have done the exercise. Now look again at what it found.
This looks at what you found and helps you understand it. It is not another exercise to repeat.
Take this to Ask Mark →Go a little further
Recommended by the TAIU community
What helped you?
If you've read, watched, listened to or tried something that helped you think about this differently, we'd like to hear about it.
We review recommendations before sharing them with the community.
Finished the exercise?
What did this uncover?
Tell us whether it helped and what you discovered. It takes less than a minute.
Next tool
I'm worried about someone
If the worry is bigger than the help
Further thinking
Give and Take
Adam Grant
Fairy Tales and Script Drama Analysis
Stephen Karpman
Relatives of the Impaired Elderly: Correlates of Feelings of Burden
Steven Zarit
See the thinking ↓
Book
Give and Take
Adam Grant
Grant's finding that givers occupy both the top and the bottom of most performance distributions is the practical heart of this. What separates them is not generosity but whether the giving is bounded. If you have ever concluded that you should do more while quietly running out of road, read this before you add anything.
Article
Fairy Tales and Script Drama Analysis
Stephen Karpman
The original seven page paper that introduced the drama triangle, free to read and much less confident than the workshop version of it that followed. The Rescuer position is the part worth your attention: help that solves a problem the other person could have solved, and so removes the occasion for them to learn.
Article
Relatives of the Impaired Elderly: Correlates of Feelings of Burden
Steven Zarit
The work behind the caregiver burden scale. It makes the load measurable, which matters when one person is quietly carrying most of it.
Book
How to Raise an Adult
Julie Lythcott-Haims
A former Stanford dean on what over-involvement costs children later. Useful for parents whose intentions are good and whose habits are heavy.
Book
Why We Do What We Do
Edward L. Deci with Richard Flaste
The readable account of self-determination theory, written by the man who spent forty years testing it. The finding that matters here is that rewards and approval reliably change why people do things, and that behaviour which survives without either is telling you something the rest is not. It gives you a usable test rather than a feeling.