It is likely that you have seen courses on the net to improve assertiveness. However, you may not know what this term means and if it has anything to do with you. Well, assertiveness is the ability to express our opinions and feelings and defend them. Nice term, right?
In this article we want to show you in great detail what assertiveness is and how you can improve it. We hope that it will help you to be able to defend your rights and your ideas. And to understand that your point of view is as important as that of others. Do you want us to start? Well come on!
What is assertiveness?
We know as assertiveness the ability we have as a person to assert our opinion and our rights in a friendly way. This term implies an inherent ability to assert our opinion in a sincere, polite manner and without violating the way of thinking of others. In addition, the assertive person not only manages to assert their opinions of her, but can convince others of them or at least get them to listen to them.
In general, the inherent of people to say what they think makes them:
- Assertive. We consider assertive those people capable of giving their opinion without disrespecting others. That is, in a kind way and with the ability to make others understand it. These people know how to negotiate, are flexible in their way of thinking and manage to meet their objectives without harming others.
- Passive. The passive subjects, however, are those who are carried away by the opinion of others. These people are not able to tell the rest what they want or what they think. His opinion of him does not seem to be worth as much as the rest in his eyes of him.
- Aggressive. Aggressive people, however, are those who can give their opinion but do it in a bad way. They launch their way of thinking aggressively and affecting others. Regardless of what other people think. As if their opinion were the weapon of truth they wield to cut off heads.
Is it easy to be assertive?
The truth is that it requires practice. Not all people feel capable of offering their opinion. And to do it properly, frankly, sincerely and without offending anyone. And to achieve their goals with it.
To be assertive you do not have to be afraid to express what you feel or think. To be assertive, we must be able to wield our way of thinking masterfully and elegantly. Without offending anyone, contributing new ideas that can help others.
Perhaps one of the main elements that can be detrimental to assertiveness is anxiety. Feeling stressed to say what we think can make us back down and not share our thoughts. However, assertiveness can help, and a lot, to fight against this type of anxiety.
The more you express your opinion, the more you learn to do it honestly and without offense, the easier it will be for you. And you will feel less anxiety about speaking your mind. Little by little that anxiety will disappear completely and it will become just a very distant memory.
From noncoms we want to teach you to be an assertive person. For this we are going to share with you some very simple techniques with which you will be able to express your opinion in an appropriate way. It is clear that no one is born knowing. And these techniques can help you move away from passivity and aggressiveness when exposing your thoughts.
Practice them whenever you can and soon assertiveness will become a natural way of behaving for you.
What do you need
- read this article
- Carry out these simple techniques
- Practice a lot so that assertiveness becomes something inherent to your character
Instructions
We have prepared a series of very simple techniques for you to learn to be an assertive person.
- To be assertive you have to learn to prepare yourself. Assertiveness is not an innate characteristic of human beings. It is largely related to the education we have received. It has to do with our ability to control anxiety and offer our opinion. It therefore has a lot to do with our self-esteem. For this reason, in order to be assertive people, we need to go through a phase in which we are able to prepare ourselves and meet our goals. And precisely to prepare ourselves we have to be clear about what we want to achieve. What is our main objective when we express an opinion? Those others understand it and that, if we consider that it is valid in one or another situation, they also apply it.
- Let go of emotions. In order to be assertive we have to put aside the emotions that affect us when we talk to other people. Sometimes we just want to be right and dominate the other. Other times we just want to release aggression against another person who is telling us something that we do not share and that affects us. On other occasions our intention is to look good and this takes us away from our goal. Which is precisely to share our opinion? Emotions should not keep us from what we want to express. So we must be able to put them aside when we want to explain or offer another point of view. In this way, in addition, we will have more capacity to control the anxiety to give our opinion. We won’t make it personal. Simply in a point of view that we believe can bring something good to others.
- Don’t be prejudiced. This is very important in all the relationships that we are going to have. Many times we judge in advance what another person is going to say. What he does. How does she behave? And from those value judgments that we emit, we generate a behavior. Unfortunately, most of the time we are wrong. And when we think that the other person says or does something with a certain intention (which we usually don’t like), we forget to defend what we want to express. These value judgments can lead us to aggressiveness or passivity when it comes to behaving and make us move away from assertiveness. Think that when a person does something that bothers us but we know that he did it unintentionally, we usually do not give it much importance and we end up forgiving it (or letting it go) easily. Namely, that when we think that someone does something that could have negatively affected us with positive intention, it does not affect us. However, if we think that he has hurt us on purpose, things change completely. In this case, we don’t give a damn about anything and we just want to answer his bad intentions. He even humiliates him. At that point we have completely lost sight of our goal. Most fights are based on confused value judgments. Why would a person you love or respect want to hurt you? Why would a person you know nothing have a negative intention towards you? Think about these questions before making a value judgment. People don’t try to attack you, really. If we think that he has hurt us on purpose, things change completely. In this case, we don’t give a damn about anything and we just want to answer their bad intentions. She even humiliates him. At that point we have completely lost sight of our goal. Most fights are based on confused value judgments. Why would a person you love or respect want to hurt you? Why would a person you know nothing have a negative intention towards you? Think about these questions before making a value judgment. People don’t try to attack you, really. If we think that he has hurt us on purpose, things change completely. In this case, we don’t give a damn about anything and we just want to answer their bad intentions. She even humiliates him. At that point we have completely lost sight of our goal. Most fights are based on confused value judgments. Why would a person you love or respect want to hurt you? Why would a person you know nothing have a negative intention towards you? Think about these questions before making a value judgment. People don’t try to attack you, really. Most fights are based on confused value judgments. Why would a person you love or respect want to hurt you? Why would a person you know nothing have a negative intention towards you? Think about these questions before making a value judgment. People don’t try to attack you, really. Most fights are based on confused value judgments. Why would a person you love or respect want to hurt you? Why would a person you know nothing have a negative intention towards you? Think about these questions before making a value judgment. People don’t try to attack you, really.
- Find the time to negotiate. Sometimes being assertive involves having the ability to recognize the right moment to say things. On many occasions we lose the opportunity for another to understand us by choosing an inappropriate moment. However, do not be overwhelmed if this happens. There is always a second option to find the right time to talk and exchange opinions.
- Prepare what you want to tell. Now that we are clear that we must find the right time. That there is no need to make prior value judgments. That we must put aside harmful emotions when we try to express something. In general, that you have to prepare, we can now reach another very important step: preparation. If we want our conversations to be assertive, we must follow these steps:
- Be able to describe the facts. This is undoubtedly the most complex point of the entire path of assertiveness. Which is nothing more than negotiating and explaining your point of view? When we want to offer another opinion, we start from some facts. And the easiest way to start such a negotiation is to build on them. However, when presenting the facts we must be very careful with value judgments. We must consider an objective point of view and that our way of judging things on an emotional level does not affect the facts. In this way we will be able to create a conversation based on a balance for both parties. For example, if we want to tell someone that we are worried because we see that he gets up at 4:00 p.m. every day and neither studies nor works, we should not say: “you do nothing with your life. You spend the day being lazy! ” Here a value judgment and an aggressive attack on the situation would be implicit. It is easier to start a conversation by talking about the facts “lately I have noticed that you get up around 4:00 p.m. every day”.
- Continue explaining our point of view. Now that we have laid out the facts, it is time to begin our explanation. We must express clearly to the other and without hurting him what we think and why we are worried. We have as much right as anyone else to be understood and understand our point of view. If we look at the previous example, the conversation could continue like this: “I am sad to see that something may be happening to you that prevent you from being happy. That does not let you continue day to day normally.
- Be clear with our wishes, with what has led us to start this conversation. There is nothing better in these cases than abandoning generalists and offering solutions. It is useless to tell the other person “I want you to stop loitering.” It is easier to help him create a goal: “How about we set the alarm clock for 9:00 every day and try going for a walk in the morning to relax and then look for a job or study for two hours?”
- Come to the conclusions of these acts. As a general rule, changing the way we act has consequences that we hope will be beneficial. In this case, the consequence will be that you will feel better about yourself and you may get a good job or study something that you are passionate about. If it is not carried out, you may end up falling into a depression and very sad.
