As you continue to seek success in your personal, business or love life, it always helps to take stock of your level of self-assertiveness. It is the ability to be able to express honestly with yourself without unwarranted self-doubt and it doesn’t come easy for some.
If you give off the impression that people can actually “walk all over you”, you are only putting yourself in a negative light. It is a tale-tell sign of what you really think of yourself. Although some people are born assertive, other people’s assertiveness is actually a cultivated skill.
Here are a few steps or strategies to become more self-assertive:
- Use honesty as a tool. Knowing your boundaries and using honesty to reinforce it is very helpful.
- Identify your boundaries. Remember that the very first stride to mastering self-assertiveness is determining where to draw the line. In short, it is the answer to the question: “How much abuse are you willing to take?”
- Start by writing down where you draw the line in different situations and pay close scrutiny to your personal reactions. How exactly did you feel? Do you see a point where you could have put your foot down?
- Be honest and do not let self-doubt hinder you from defining new boundaries.
- Keep calm. Some people tend to get defensive when being confronted about their behavior. The best way to go is by being calm.
- Avoid giving your opponent the chance to derail you by changing the subject. Be calm to talk to them properly.
- Think Strategically. As you continue to build your own self-assertiveness, you will come across people who will overstep your boundaries.
- Assertiveness is not a verbal shouting match. It is a calm and clear discourse. Generally, the calmer you are when dealing with an offender, the more effective your conversation will be.
- Even extremely intelligent people can be completely unaware as to how their behavior affects others. However, this is not an excuse. Asserting yourself properly will help the other person to realize how their behavior comes across.
- An acronym “ASSA” clearly represents an effective strategy to keep conversations on topic and on point:
- Alert the person that you want to talk with them.
- State your grievance clearly and calmly.
- Sell them the benefits of changing their behavior.
- Agree that they will do things differently in the future.
- And another tip: if you ever find yourself slipping at any point, remember to get back to the last main point before the conversation veered.
- Forgive judiciously. It is a fact that the ability to forgive is beneficial, it is also possible that you may go too far.
- Continually forgiving someone for their bad behavior will result to them offending you again.
- One wise way to empower your own being is to cut off connections with toxic people in your life. Although the split will initially be painful, you’re most likely to blossom once you’re free of their influence.
- And once you’re free from the toxic people, you’ll then attract individuals who will treat you with the respect that you deserve.
Practicing these self-assertiveness strategies will help you become stronger. Let’s continue to dialogue. Leave your comments below or head over to my Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/FearlessPursuits/. Can you remember a time when you addressed your assertiveness with someone and you were able to turn it around to your benefit? What process did you use?