How To Be Assertive, Not Aggressive
Description
Have you ever had moments when you wished you spoke up and asserted yourself, but you didn’t? Do you feel difficulty asserting yourself sometimes?
I feel this way too sometimes. In this episode of The Personal Excellence Podcast, learn
- 5 tips to build your courage to be assertive without being aggressive
- Why being assertive doesn’t mean you stop being nice [02:21 ]
- Why being assertive is not the same as being aggressive [03:21 ]
- 2 key differences between being assertiveness and aggressiveness [4:08 ]
- The value of your voice [04:56 ]
- An incident where I got molested and didn’t assert myself, and why I should have [05:54 ]
- 3 questions to ask yourself in determining whether to assert yourself [10:49 ]
- An alternate approach for people who assert too much [11:38 ]
- Why you shouldn’t just “wait” when it comes to high-level career questions like promotion plan and salary rise [12:19 ]
- Dealing with a parent who keeps pushing their views on you [13:45 ]
- The face-saving culture and being sensitive to people’s feelings when asserting [15:39 ]
- What I do when I have disruptive course participants [16:42 ]
- Using I-statements vs. You-statements [18:20 ]
- 3 differences between I-statements and You-statements, and why I-statements are better when it comes to asserting yourself or in conflicts [19:36 ]
- Example of I-statements in a conflict with your partner [22:00 ]
- Focus on the positive in conversations [23:52 ]
- How to talk to your boss if you’re facing heavy workload [24:59 ]
- How to assert to a difficult co-worker [26:09 ]
- The importance of win-win and how to involve others [28:18 ]
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Read the transcript for this episode here.
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How To Be Assertive, Not Aggressive [Transcript]
Welcome to The Personal Excellence Podcast. The show that’s all about helping you be your best self and live your best life. Now, your host, Celestine Chua!
Celestine Chua: Hey everyone, welcome to The Personal Excellence Podcast Episode 9, this is Celestine Chua from PersonalExcellence.co.
Today we have a question from reader Saim, who wants to know, how can you be more assertive and stay humble and polite at the same time? So let’s hear from him first.
Hi Celes, this is Saim from Pakistan. For the last 6 years, I’ve been working in Saudi Arabia in a multinational company. Some of my friends recommended me the Personal Excellence website and shared with me some free ebooks from PE. And then I logged on to the website, and I’ve been reading your articles, courses, so much stuff for the last 6 months. It’s really quite interesting and I really appreciate that. It has been helping me excel in my job.
The question I want to ask is, ‘How to be assertive?’ As a person, I’m humble and polite. But there are many situations in the workplace where we need to be assertive instead of being aggressive. I want to know and would appreciate if you can answer through the podcast in details on how to be assertive and techniques to do so.
Hey Saim, thank you so much for your question. Unfortunately, the question got cut off because there is an audio limit for the clips. The good thing is we got to hear your question: How can you be assertive while still remaining humble and polite at the same time?
So firstly, I just want to thank you for reading PE. And I want to thank your friends for recommending PE to you. Your support really means the world to me.
Now I want to make two quick points before I jump into the tips.
Fact #1: Being assertive doesn’t mean you stop being nice
The first thing is you mentioned that you’re humble and polite, which is a great thing. A lot of us are probably worried that when we try to be assertive, we stop being nice. For most of us here, we probably have core values of compassion, being nice to others, being sensitive, and being there for people. And maybe we feel that when we try to articulate our needs, we may come across as pushy. Maybe people don’t like that or they feel that we’re being arrogant.
It’s a common misconception. Being assertive doesn’t necessarily mean that you stop being humble, polite, or nice. It’s about how you assert yourself and I want to share some tips later on how we can be assertive and not come across as an ass.
Fact #2: Difference between assertiveness and aggressiveness
The second point is about assertive vs. aggressive. I love that you are asking how to be assertive without being aggressive. Because there is a distinction between assertiveness and aggressiveness.
When you are assertive, you are voicing your opinions and needs in a positive way while working with others to achieve a common goal. On the other hand, aggressiveness is when you make your point and force it across without consideration of other people’s opinions or feelings. Some people may even attack or ignore other peoples opinions, feelings, and needs altogether.
Here there are two big differences:
- Assertiveness is the articulation of your needs in a positive way, whereas aggressiveness is negative.
- Assertiveness is where you acknowledge that people have needs and you want to work with them to understand their needs and achieve this common goal. Whereas aggressiveness, you don’t really consider that people have their own opinions, boundaries, and needs. You don’t respect that either. You just want to push your point across.
In today’s podcast, I want to share several tips on how to be assertive without being aggressive. These tips apply to different contexts be it work or relationships, and it’s about tweaking them to fit your situation.
1) Recognize the value of your voice
My first tip is to recognize the value of your voice.
I find that a lot of us don’t speak up often because maybe we feel that we have to say isn’t important. Maybe people don’t care, or people don’t want to hear what we have to say, or what we’re gonna say isn’t going to make a difference or add any value.
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United States
