A lot of people have come to me for help in my career, which most times I’m happy to do. Sometimes it’s a quick conversation, an email, and sometimes it’s something deeper. But once in a while, you’ll have someone who seems to need too much help, leaning on you for everything, and seems to have made you their person. They’re needy. You feel bad because you’re frustrated.  Here’s what I learned.

Here’s my personal rule. If that person was going to get there anyway (promotion, new role, etc), helping them is not a problem. If the person was never going to get there…..helping them is. Why?  I’ve seen where people have intervened on someone else’s behalf, and when they got the promotion, new role, what have you….they could not hold onto it on their own. Even worse, they tended to blame the person they were depending on for their failure! So when I see these circumstances, I’m polite but careful not to become the lifeguard.

People don’t want to believe that they can’t get there. The hard reality though is that not everyone can.