How to become more assertive

Do you wish you were more assertive? I do! I am not as assertive as I would like to be. However, with time, I am learning how I can become more confident, bold, and decisive, assured and ask for what I want often.

Do you wish you were more assertive?

Here are some tips you can use to become more assertive.

As a woman, society expects us to be more caring, nurturing, and often, overconfident women are not a favorite of the society. They are perceived as rude, and even masculine when they are confident, assured and know how to ask for what they want.

How can you gain female assertiveness?

This is whereby as a woman, you learn to ask for what you want, state your opinion with confidence, clearly and firmly. You can learn to be assertive and get what you want without necessarily being pushy or rude.

In psychology, it is important to draw a line between being aggressive, and being assertive as described below;

Being passive can stand in your way. Often you will become a pushover whereby you do more of what others want because you are not assertive enough to stand up for yourself. Being too passive can stand in the way of your career progression and even in the way of a happy relationship because you are always giving way for others to shine and little allowance for yourself. Passive individuals are inhibited, self-denying, constantly apologetic and self-blaming and will often feel that they cause trouble to others when they express their needs.

At the same time, you can watch out not to be too aggressive in such a way that you push others away with your attitude. When you are aggressive, you attack, blame, control others to advance your interests and have little regard for the rights and needs of others. Passive-aggressive on the other hand is when you don’t make it clear about your rights and needs. You are dishonest when expressing yourself because you don’t want to hurt others and therefore create a mixed signal of self-denying and self-enhancing.

Assertiveness comes when you are honest with what you want and empathic to the emotions of others. you clearly state that the rights and wants of others matter and yours too as well.

How you can become more assertive

Know your value and your worth

You are likely not to feel apologetic asking for what you want when you know your value and your worth. Work on improving your self-worth which comes from a point of self-awareness. Self-awareness helps with self-understanding and self-acceptance and hence improved self-worth. When you place a high value on yourself, you will continually feel that you deserve nice things too and will not shy away from asking for them. This way, you develop assertiveness and not feel like you need to apologies for your needs and wants.

Tip: A self-awareness course will help you understand yourself better and accept yourself.

You are your first cheerleader

We fail in being assertive when we don’t think we are important enough to get the good things. We sometimes don’t think we are a priority and that other deserving people should get the good stuff. If you don’t have yourself in your corner, you can’t convince others to come to your corner. You have to be there first. Be your own cheerleader. Learn to love yourself such that you can easily express what you want in order to meet your needs and wants.

Work on that self-doubt

We fail at assertiveness when we undermine our own authority. Every time we wait to be let to speak, allow interruptions, start our sentences with I don’t know, I think, we show others that we doubt ourselves and give them even more reasons to doubt us. Don’t be afraid to take up more space on the table and interject to pass your point across if you need to. Here are some tips to help you overcome self-doubt.

Have the courage to be disliked

We often fear expressing ourselves because we fear it will rub others the wrong way. We worry that others will not like us anymore or they will get offended when we express ourselves. We worry we will be termed as a bitch for speaking up. If you want to be assertive, you have to forget the notion that people need to like you all the time. You need to stop being a people pleaser which is one of the childhood wounds many of us struggle with. Instead, decide that you don’t want people to like you if they cannot respect your needs and wants. Choose to put yourself first no matter how much of a struggle this may be.

Learn how to say no

Commonly, people leasers will often say yes to things they don’t even want to do because they are afraid of offending others. Next thing you know, everyone walks all over you because you have not set any boundaries. Saying no helps others know that you too have limits and there is only so much they can get from you. You cannot please everyone and if you do, you will end up exhausted doing a lot to please others and little to meet your needs and wants.

Learn to use I without apologies

When you use I, you put yourself first and call to attention others to listen to you. Say I want, I feel, I prefer, I believe more and see how this will show confidence. You will seem like someone that has a backbone and know what they want. The more confidence you display, the more people will start respecting you enough to ask for your opinions, ideas and start to respect you.