How to develop assertiveness for your own best interest.

Assertiveness is a skill in expressing your thoughts, ideas and feelings confidently and precisely. It is an important skill in communication and helps in improving interactions and relationships at home and at work.

How to develop this skill.

• Improve your self-esteem.

A person will low self-esteem or the lack of self-worth finds difficulty in voicing out her opinions and standing up for herself because she feels that her ideas and feelings do not matter. She masks it by identifying herself as shy and timid. She keeps her resentment and anger and may show her in-compliant by being passive and aloof.

In order for you to become more assertive, you should develop and improve your self-esteem by changing the way you think, see and feel about yourself.

You need to question your limiting beliefs about your incapability and inadequacy. You have to train yourself not to worry about how other people perceive you.

With an improved self-esteem, your self-image and confidence will develop and you will have a different opinion about yourself. When you strongly believe in yourself and your worthiness, you are able to communicate congruently and effectively and can say "No" without giving excuses.

• Model assertive individuals.

One of the easiest ways to learn to develop it is to model a person who already has the skill and able to produce the same results repeatedly. What you need to do is to observe the person speaking, how he uses his body language and the tone of his voice to exert himself and express his thoughts and emotions and get himself heard. Watch his posture and his physiology.

You can become like the person who communicates effectively and are bold and confident in interacting. It is just that you have not learned and practiced yet. Other than observing, ask him how and what he thinks inside his head.

Practice doing in your mind and then express it outwardly in your interaction and you will eventually get it right. You will know that it is working when you get positive feedback.

• Learn to listen.

In order to express your opinions and feelings without feeling guilty and hurting others, you need to learn to listen to what people are saying. Listening here means giving your full attention to what he has to say without making prior judgments and the need to interrupt and reply.

By listening attentively also means restating and re-framing his statements so that you will understand his message and not use mind reading and assumptions. When you listen, you show respect to him and you will gain respect in return.

When there is mutual respect, you create a bond and you can communicate and express openly and honestly without violating his values and yours. It enables you to ask for what you want and object to something that does not benefit or interest you, with ease and comfort.

• Exercise self-control.

You need not worry about being labeled dominant or controlling if you are assertive but not aggressive. An assertive style in communication demonstrates your tolerance to listen, to negotiate, to respect others and yet able to put forth your opinions.

Aggressiveness brings about hostility because you will demonstrate a controlling attitude by not allowing others to speak, giving pressure to others to accept your ideas and attacking other people with abusive language and behaviors.

Having the ability to exercise self-control improve your ability to become more assertive because you are able to accept criticism and harsh judgments without affecting your self-esteem. It will enable you to control your anger, to speak when necessary and to stand up for yourself without expressing the same bitterness.

Return to top of assertiveness page.