Are you wondering how to be assertive without being aggressive? I'm Nicholeen Peck
and I teach all about parenting, good communication and building strong bonds and relationships all
through the lens of self-government and in this video we're talking about assertiveness.
In this video we're going to talk about the difference between aggressive and assertive
and give you some things that you can do to be more assertive in your problem solving
and your communication. Many people think that being assertive and being aggressive
are synonymous with each other but they're not. Actually assertiveness is totally different
than aggressiveness so let's talk about the difference. Aggressiveness is pretty easy to
recognize. When a person is aggressive, they're always countering everything, fighting back
stuff, they have no patience usually. So, this is the type of person that's going to get angry
quickly, they're going to yell, they're going to say mean words, they're going to have responses like
you know all the time. Those types of people are usually giving in to some aggressiveness. People
that are aggressive are trying to control a situation or an outcome with their emotions.
Assertive people however are not focused on controlling everybody else. Assertive people
are focused on controlling themselves. Now, this doesn't mean just pulling back emotion.
There's a lot more to it than that. So when a person is aggressive, they could be like this
and be aggressive. They could not be loud at all but they're still like the loudest person
in the room if you know what I mean. Those people can still be considered aggressive.
I would just call that passive aggressive. When a person is trying not to make a scene
because they know it might look ridiculous or out of control yet they're not okay, that's
another type of aggressive. It's called passive aggressive. It's putting on one sort of a show
when in reality something else is going on on the inside. So what does it look like or feel
like when a person is assertive? What it looks like is a person who is confident, a person who
has skills, a person who has a plan, a person who can communicate with other people, can listen to
other people, will still stand for what's true and what's right. They're not going to be pushed
around by anybody but they're not going to fight somebody either because there's no merit in it
and they know that. When a person is assertive, they actually are usually following principle and not
emotion and that's the biggest difference between your aggressive person and your assertive person.
Aggressive people follow emotion or how they feel in any given minute where an assertive person
follows their values and their principles and they make a plan for how to do so so that they
are successful. We're going to talk about some skills and things that you can do to be more
assertive but before we do, click that subscribe button now. This channel has so many videos that
will help you develop more assertiveness in all of your relationships, especially if you happen to be
a parent so click the subscribe button now. Okay so how do we change? Let's say you've been aggressive,
you don't like it. You don't want to be aggressive anymore. What do you need to do instead? Well it
starts with making a plan. You've got to decide what type of person you ought to be and this is
a plan that's worth writing down. So, get out a piece of paper and write down who ought, that's
o-u-g-h-t, ought I to be. What type of a person do I know I'm supposed to be on the inside, whether it's
happening or not does not matter right now. I want you to write that down. Are you supposed to be an
understanding person, are you supposed to be the type of person who listens to what other people
have to say, are you supposed to be the type of person who can express yourself in a meaningful
way to other people? What is it that you want to be? Loving, caring, kind. Write down all of those things.
Now I know that you're thinking yeah but in the moment it doesn't happen so let's understand what
is happening in the moment. This can really help us. So you may feel something, maybe it's stress, maybe
it's overwhelm, maybe it's frustration or maybe you feel like someone doesn't understand you.
Those are all real feelings that a person could have but right after you feel those feelings,
you get the opportunity to make a choice on what thought you will have in your head. When you feel
like someone's not understanding you, do you think ugh, they don't even care or they never understand.
Those are the wrong thoughts. They are going to lead you toward aggressiveness every time.
You're going to start to feel like you have to force the information into the other person
because suddenly you feel like a victim. We have way too many victims in our society. We have a
whole bunch of people identifying as victims right now when they're actually not victims. This is a
big problem for our world so we absolutely have to get a handle on the thoughts that are going on on
the inside. Maybe if somebody's not understanding you, you could think instead a thought like this
person might not have had this experience before. Maybe I can talk with them about it.
Give yourself a hopeful thought, something that moves you in a forward direction, something that's
going to bond you to a person instead of detach you from somebody. Usually when we have thoughts
that lead us toward uniting with someone, those are productive thoughts. When we have thoughts
that pull us away from other people, usually unless it's you know getting away from abuse or something,
usually those are non-productive thoughts. We've got to choose what we want to think and then
take action based upon the productive thoughts that can make all the difference for you and
it's just a small little thing that you do. You make a plan to analyze your own thoughts,
give people the benefit of the doubt and connect with them instead of detached from them, that's
huge and that is an assertive step. Another thing that we can do to be more assertive
is have skills as part of our plan. So if you need to correct a person, have a skill for that. If
you need to accept a "no" answer from somebody else, have a skill for that. There are four adult skills
that I teach to parents so that they can prepare their children for success as an adult and they
start teaching these skills to their children when the children are very young. There are four basic
skills. They are following instructions, accepting "no" answers and criticism, accepting consequences
and disagreeing appropriately. Do you know those skills because they're going to help you in your
life. Did you know that lots of times when people are getting angry at somebody and they're getting
aggressive, it's because they're not knowing how to disagree in an appropriate way or they don't
know to just drop the subject, which is part of accepting a "no" answer or accepting consequences.
So, learning some skills that you might need for success could be really powerful. One of
probably the most vital skills that I ever decided upon for myself was the skill for how to be calm
when someone else isn't, how to help them get calm without losing my calmness at the same time. I'm a
pretty fiery person. In fact by nature I would say I am more of that aggressive type of person. I'm
very strong-willed, I like to make sure my point is understood but there was a time when I realized it
was ruining my relationships it was really ruining my relationships with my parents. So when I was 14
years old, I took that strong will and i made myself a new skill. The skill was how to accept
"no" answers and then how to follow instructions was part of that too. I adopted those skills
and my relationship with my parents changed. That didn't mean that my strong will changed completely
but over time, over a few years, I started seeing the power in making a skill for
myself for everything. Well by the time I got to be a treatment foster parent of troubled teens,
I recognized that I was going to become unhinged if I did not have a skill for how to be calm when
they were going completely out of control because it was real irrational, sometimes wild, sometimes
even dangerous stuff because I was doing level three treatment care in my home. So, I had to learn
how to keep myself calm. I had to create certain thoughts in my head, certain actions, I had to
determine what the triggers were in my body that showed me I was soon not going to be calm. I had to
plan all of that stuff out so that I could choose calmness in the moment. It took some practice.
Any time that you go from aggressiveness to assertiveness, it's going to take some practice
so be patient with yourself as you make that shift. But you absolutely can have a skill that will help
you process situations completely differently. So I want to share some of my skills with you. I have
a calm parenting toolkit and I want to give it to you for free. In the description below this video,
there is a link in the top of the description that says teachselfgov.com/toolkit. If you go to that
calm parenting toolkit through that link, you can have the call parenting toolkit for free. So click
on the link now so that you can get some of my secrets to calmness to help you be more assertive
in your relationship and in your life. You will be so much happier. There's freedom
on the other side I promise you. Aggressiveness always leads to bondage but assertiveness leads
to freedom and good relationships so click on the link to the calm parenting toolkit now.