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Be assertive and live healthier.

Maybe you have already experienced this scenario: the meeting is over, you go out of the meeting-room and after a couple of minutes you start realizing that you were not able to express your opinion firmly, to say that you don’t agree, to give the rest of the team explanations for your point of view, or at least to say that you have one.

The typical “Should-Y-Thinking” is what is happens next. You sit down on your chair at your desk and you can’t stop thinking “Maybe I should have said that I don’t agree, I should have said the same that Mary said, I should have told my boss about what happened last week…”

You can’t concentrate on your next activity, you start thinking you are not worth it and that you were not able to do your job effectively, you are not good in meetings, or maybe you find other ways to give the fault to someone else. “He was speaking too much, he never let me speak and he is so loud and aggressive that I can’t speak…”

Or maybe you react aggressively to others’ opinions and force others to take the decision YOU want, making you a name as a “bossy” one. Maybe you are always under stress and pressure, venting your frustration in situations and persons that have nothing to do with it, trying to show the “strongest” part of you.

Actually it does not matter if you are acting like in the first or second example, you don’t feel happy with yourself, and you think people don’t respect you and should. You don’t feel satisfied with you life, feel stresses communicating with others and you think you miss a balance that you are struggling to find.

What you had needed is Assertiveness, the ability to communicate in a way that you can make your point and stand for your needs taking into consideration the needs of others.

Assertiveness is NOT a communication technique, is a state of mind, an attitude to yourself and to life is the key to your balance and to a peaceful and self confident way of communicating and living with others.

It is not about being aggressive or dominant, simply it is about of being present, being you and speaking according to your values and needs.

People tend to think that aggressiveness and assertiveness are very similar, but they are not: we are talking about two different communication styles.

When you are assertive your tone of the voice is quite but firm, your body is relaxed as you are in complete control of yourself. When you are aggressive you are trying to control others, and your “pushy” attitude is provoking a hard and harsh tone of the voice and stressed and tense body.

Learning to be assertive will give you the chance to stay more relaxed, to avoid stress not only in the moment of the meeting or of the conversation, it gives you the chance later on to show your strengths and abilities.

A successful person has learnt to deal with conflicts and critical situations, and to deal with the persons involved in these situations. A successful person has learnt to manage emotions in order to achieve the desired goals. In order to do this a successful person has learnt to express her/his opinion properly, to voice his/her need for clarifying topics, and the need to think over a proposal. Assertiveness is simply a communication style which enable you to express your needs and wishes without controlling and manipulating others.

Being assertive helps us managing our emotions, showing and expressing explicitly the borders to others so that nobody is manipulating you and (more important) that you don’t feel manipulated.

Being manipulated can bring to burn out, to depression and to severe anxiety attacks, but not because of others, but because you are not able to react. When you are not in control of yourself you feel and notice that someone else is, that you cannot make your own decision and live the life you want.

Assertiveness’ first step then is about recognizing who you are, what you can and what you want. Living HERE AND NOW is the secret formula for being able to react in that specific moment.

It doesn’t matter how old you are, how much experience you have, whether you use it in your private or in your professional life, assertiveness can and should be trained if you want to reach your goals effectively and want to be seen as self confident, balanced, and professional at the same time.

I like to use the word “balance”, because assertiveness gives you the right tools to manage and control your emotions, and this means that you can act and communicate without emotional eruptions (which impede you seeing the things the way they really are) but with empathy and tranquility, so that you can be seen as professional and self-confident.

Assertiveness has a lot of beneficial effects, for example it gives you the chance to:

• Increase your self-confidence;
• Reduce the need of approval by others;
• Accept the right of others to live their own life the way they want, base for respectful and long-lasting relationships;
• Retain your self-respect;
• Keep the control over your life and take the decisions you want;
• Relate to others in a healthy and balanced way.

Assertiveness is the key to your daily pressure at work, to a successful negotiation or conflict management, assertiveness is the key to a peaceful and happy life.

 

If you want to attend my next workshops “Assertiveness and Self-Confidence in Business” please go to the link https://www.haufe-akademie.de/19.49