Assertive behaviour

What word best describes the week you’ve just had? For me, it’s assertive.

Why? Firstly, I delivered a workshop on assertiveness to a group of year nine boys in a school in North London. What was noticeable about this session was that the boys were adamant that assertive behaviour can only be successful when used between adults.

This was also the thinking of a group of 16-year-old girls when I delivered a similar workshop on the same theme two weeks ago.

This is something I want to explore further with young people in the future. But I did try to reinforce the message: you can’t control the behaviour of others, but you can control what you do.

Back to this week and assertive behaviour. I had two issues of my own, one with a neighbour and another with a business partner. At the time, I felt I had dealt with both assertively in different ways to suit the contrasting situations. On reflection, I found myself realising that assertive behaviour can sometimes be confused with aggressive behaviour, and that there can be a fine line between the two.

In my case, even though I thought I was using firm but gentle speech, I realised my tone may have sounded louder or more forceful than I intended.

Finally, assertiveness has also been coming up with one or two of my clients, particularly around the struggle to be truthful with people.

Assertive behaviour has many aspects, but one observation I often see is that people avoid being assertive because they don’t want to hurt someone’s feelings, and then end up struggling with guilty feelings of their own.

The simple way to deal with guilty feelings is to let go of guilty thoughts. Here’s how:

How to work through guilt around assertiveness

1. Spend time thinking about what you are going to feel like, and the effect on your life, if you are not assertive.
2. Visualise yourself telling the person what it is you have to say. See yourself using positive body language and speaking clearly and calmly, while holding eye contact.
3. Remind yourself why you need to be assertive with this person, how you are going to feel by being assertive, and how the situation may improve because of your assertive behaviour.
4. If you have guilty thoughts and feelings, check in with yourself and notice the actual words you are saying to yourself. Write these words down and then change the sentence to what you would rather say. Say this new sentence whenever you catch yourself feeling guilty.

Being assertive isn’t easy and takes practice, but keep going. The feelings of guilt may eventually subside.

Benefits of assertive behaviour

There are many proven benefits of assertive behaviour (e.g. Bishop, 2013; Pipas & Jaradat, 2010). Here are 10:

1. Greater self-awareness
2. A more positive self-image
3. An increased likelihood of finding positive solutions
4. Greater self-confidence
5. Higher self-esteem
6. More respect for others’ opinions and viewpoints
7. Greater self-control
8. More effective communication skills
9. Higher self-respect
10. Increased ability to avoid interpersonal conflicts