Be assertive, respectfully
Most people tend to be indirect about expressing their feelings and needs, but being assertive is vital to our capacity to achieve, as well as for our psychological health.
When we are not being assertive, we may:
Call on the invisible expert: “They say the situation is getting worse. Some say it’s getting better. Who can you trust?”
State feelings indirectly: “The layoff made me feel, you know...you work all those years, and they send you home packing.”
Hint at what you want: “John thinks we should…” or “Nice day for an outing. What do you think we should do?”
When we communicate like this, we may think we’re being nice, but we are actually creating a lot of work for the listener.
To practice assertive expression, we don’t leave interpretation to chance by including three elements:
Your perspective on the situation,
Your feelings on the situation, and
Your needs on the situation.
Examples:
“When I think about presenting at the board meeting, I get really nervous. I’ve been feeling sick in my stomach all morning. I’m just not ready. Please find someone else.”
“Lunch was a lot of fun. I think we have a lot in common, and I’d like to get to know you better. Do you want to go out Friday night?
“We spend a lot of time talking about your work, and I get bored and a little irritated when you come home and discuss office politics. I’d like to talk more about us and how we’re feeling about each other.”
Assertive statements don’t blame or use labels, or make the other person sound like a jerk. They stick to observations, feelings, and needs.
And all responsibility for feelings belongs to the speaker. Assertive statements don’t say things like, “you’re being self-centered” or even “I feel that you’re being self centered,” which is a judgmental accusation disguised as a feeling.
Taking responsibility for our emotions would be a statement like, “I feel angry when you’re late for dinner. It made me think you don’t care enough about me to be on time.”
That’s assertive. That’s powerful. That’s confident communication.
