- Hey everybody, happy Thursday.
Now, today's question is all about being assertive.
A lot of you asked about this after watching
my video about why it's so hard to say no.
If you're curious what video I'm talking about,
I'll link it in the description.
You should check it out.
Also, are you subscribed and have
your notifications turned on?
Why'd you miss that video?
Anyways, let's get into how to be assertive.
I think, I don't know, for some reason,
I feel like being assertive always gets lumped in
with being aggressive or being a jerk.
But trust me, being assertive is
something completely different.
Being assertive is when you're able to stand up
for yourself or others in your life without
being aggressive or being passive and accepting
something that's hurtful or not right for you.
And we do all of this, meaning, being assertive,
we do it all calmly with a positive goal in mind.
And I actually talk about some of these tips in my book.
If you don't know about my book,
I had a book that came out last December called "Are U OK?".
But I talk about it in the chapter
about avoiding common mistakes.
So if you want to do a deeper dive, check out my book.
It's available anywhere books are sold,
and also for free at your local library.
I think the main reason a lot of people in our community
were wanting more information about how to be
assertive is because a lot of us
struggle with standing up for ourselves.
I've heard from so many of your that that's the same
reason it was hard to say no is we don't
want to hurt anybody's feelings,
we don't want to upset anybody.
We tend to be more in the like passively allow
things that are wrong for us happen,
and we don't always speak up
because we don't really know how to.
So today I'm gonna offer, I think there's nine tips,
if I remember all up in my brain here,
nine tips on how to be assertive.
I tried to put them in akind of an order
that makes sense for how we could
process it and go through with it,
but as always, if you feel like I'm missing something
or you want me to, you know, expand on something else
or you have your own tips and tools to share,
leave those in the comments down below.
Then let's just get into it.
My first tip is self-talk.
Now, I know I talk about this all the time,
and you're probably really sick of it,
but self-talk is so important.
We get to decide how we want to feel about things.
Feelings don't run the show, we run it.
If we want to get caught up in a feeling
or an experience and keep ruminating and making
ourselves feel worse and worse, we can do that.
I've done that.
I'm sure you've done that, we all do that.
And so, it's really important is to notice how
we're talking to ourselves about
our relationships or our competency.
Those are the things that kinda hold us back
and cause us to be more passive
or maybe even more aggressive because we could
only be passive for so long and somebody can
keep poking our buttons, and then, we explode, right?
We've all done that, sometimes.
My first tip is to notice your self-talk.
Notice how you're speaking to yourself in your mind.
That doesn't make you crazy, that just makes you normal.
Notice that self-talk and improve it so that
you can begin to feel the confidence that
you're gonna need to assert yourself.
And I know it's hard, but just start with maybe
one thing that you like about yourself today.
I was even just in yoga today and I loved it
because my teacher Nancy was like,
as we were laying down for Savasana,
which is my favorite pose,
it's called Corpse Pose at the end where you just lay,
she was like, I want you to think about
three things you love about yourself,
I want you to breathe those in.
She's like, think of one, breathe in, breathe out,
and it was really a nice exercise because
even though I'm telling you to do this all the time,
I don't always remember to do it everyday.
I'm human too, right?
So just pay attention and maybe start out with
one thing you like about yourself or your situation,
move up to two, three, and really,
my goal is always like five a day.
I don't know, just a nice round number.
So let's just get started in noticing
our self-talk and work to improve it.
Tip number two, figure out where your boundaries are.
I know, I talk about boundaries all the time,
and we can talk about boundaries in relation
to like my property, your property,
but when it comes to like emotional health,
boundaries are more, they're more like
what's okay for me and what's not okay for me
and what's okay for you and not okay for you.
And often we aren't assertive and we passively
accept people stepping over those boundaries, right?
Even if we know I don't really like
people hugging me that I don't know,
makes me really uncomfortable or I don't like people
getting close to me talking in my space
or people telling me what to do, right?
There are certain things that are
gonna be kinda triggery for us.
I honestly think boundary crossing
is one of the biggest triggers for people.
And so, there can be a lot of
different things that are triggering.
And so, if we don't notice or even
note what our boundaries are,
how can we uphold them or how can we even know when
to assert ourselves and when maybe we don't need to?
I know that's kind of difficult to like conceptualize,
but something really cool about our body and our brain
is that it tells us when our boundaries are being stepped on
or pushed past with that like triggering feeling.
You could be really uncomfortable,
you could want to, it's like fight, flight, or freeze.
We could want to fight, we could want to run away,
or we could just like not know what to do (sigh).
So pay attention to what your body and brain tell you.
It's kinda part of the mindfulness component
of like dialectical behavior therapy, DBT.
Just being able to check in with yourself
because I think this is really, really important,
and boundaries can help us better understand
what feels right for us and what isn't right.
It can also help us weed out any unhealthy
relationships that we may have been holding onto
'cause if someone's always overstepping
our boundaries and not respecting us,
that's not a good thing,
and that's something that we should either try to assert,
and if they don't listen,
then maybe it's a good time to let them go.
And number three, my third tip, notice your triggers,
and that kinda builds off of the boundaries,
but are there certain things that make you
get aggressive or cause you to be passive?
Maybe they come from your childhood
and the way that your parents maybe spoke to you.
Maybe they're due to an unhealthy
relationship or marriage that you had.
Pay attention and note what these are
because when we first start trying to assert ourselves,
we want to be assertive when we aren't triggered
and build up to being able to handle
a triggering situation and not lose control.
Doesn't that make sense?
Because if we try, it's almost like anything like,
if we just try when we're not feeling our best self,
like I've talked about having poker chips everyday,
and if we have a bunch of our poker chips,
meaning our resiliency,
that's really what I'm sneaking in there,
but if we have a bunch of poker chips,
that means if someone's a jerk to us
we might lose a couple and we're still okay,
we still have plenty of poker chips.
But if we wake up and we have none
or we're super triggered and it's like
we throw all our poker chips out the window,
we don't have any ability to like calm ourselves down,
so we're not gonna be able to,
remember back at the beginning when I talked about
being assertive I said this is all done
calmly and with a positive goal in mind.
And trust me, I'm the same, if I'm triggered
or if I'm upset if someone's been really rude
and really just poked that button,
the only option for me is either to
run away or to be aggressive, to fight.
And so, pay attention and be a little more
aware of your triggers with this so
that you can come into the situation,
you can be assertive and not lose control.
It's kind of like thinking of
like wise mind versus emotion mind.
We can only be affective and assertive
when we're in wise mind, right?
If we're running on emotions,
we're not really making wise decisions in our life, okay?
Now, tip number four, and you knew this was coming
if you've watched my videos in the past,
is write it out and practice what you want to say out loud.
I know that's kinda like two things in one,
but they really come together because I want you
to practice writing out how you would say,
I don't want to do that or actually,
I don't really have time, so you can't count me in on that,
but next time maybe.
You know, how is it that we're gonna verbalize it?
What situations are happening where we feel like
we're getting walked on or we feel like we're being
aggressive and we don't really want to be that way?
Write out how you would, instead, assert yourself.
How would you tell them what it
is you can't or what you can do,
maybe briefly why, and then, end the conversation.
Like how are we gonna do that?
It could be as simple as like, hey,
I really would appreciate it if you didn't call me that.
I prefer to be called this.
Let's say someone keeps calling you, I don't know,
Larry, and you prefer to go by Lawrence.
I don't know, it could be as simple as that.
It also could be something as like ridiculous
as someone always assuming that
you will do whatever they wanna do.
Like oh, I booked us a trip for the weekend to Napa,
and you're like, dude, I'm over my budget and cannot go,
but if we aren't able to say that,
we end up having to spend money we shouldn't,
doing things we don't want to, and overall,
just not feeling like a happy, healthy self.
And so, write it out.
Try to figure out how you'd put words.
This might be like writing some of it,
scribbling it out, doing it again,
but write it out and practice what you want to say out loud.
So once we figure out kinda what we want to say,
say it out loud either to yourself in your living room
and you can like role play with yourself,
you could do it in therapy,
you could do it in front of a mirror,
you could do it with another close friend
who's super supportive because practicing
saying it out loud makes it less scary,
and it keeps us on topic so that
when we say the things that maybe we don't,
we're not used to saying,
like we're not used to saying no or we're not used to
saying can't do that now or I don't like it when you,
so if we aren't used to saying that,
the first time that comes out of our mouth shouldn't be
when we're trying to assert ourselves.
We should have practiced so we're more comfortable
and confident when we go to say it, okay?
Now, tip number five,
and you kind of could see this coming too, is start small.
When you really don't want Mexican food for dinner maybe,
let's say so and offer another option.
Doing these small assertive things,
I know that sounds silly, but it's those small things,
like oh, I don't want to go there, I want this.
Or you know, I really am just tired,
I don't want to watch another show.
These small things will help us get more confident
in our ability to be assertive,
and it'll move us closer to being able to
stand up for ourselves during bigger
or more maybe emotional issues, right?
Being triggered I talked about before,
if we get better at this,
then maybe even if we are triggered,
we're still able to hold our own and ask for what we need.
And so, starting small just builds us up to that.
Now, tip number six is ask questions.
This is really because it keeps our assumptions at bay
and helps us understand things from another perspective.
If we don't ask questions, we might be upset
or feel like we need to be aggressive or passive
or be triggered for no reason.
We might have just misunderstood.
There could be miscommunication.
I swear to God sometimes I think if we just communicated
more clearly we wouldn't have any fights with people.
Life would be like easy, breezy, lemon squeezy,
but instead, we, you know, we don't ask questions,
we make assumptions, and then,
we create these stories that we
truly don't have any real facts to back up.
If we ask questions and seek to understand,
we can nip that before it's even an issue at all.
Now, my seventh tip is to know that it's okay to disagree.
Being assertive doesn't mean that they're going
to agree with us and do everything that we ask.
We're just standing up for ourselves,
and if we say we're not gonna do that thing
and they don't wanna do something different,
that's okay, we can still just go do our own thing.
Disagreeing, as uncomfortable as it may be for some of us,
it doesn't mean that we have to
hate each other or fight about it.
It can just be like hey, I just don't agree with that,
I don't want to do that, that's okay, you know?
I know that it can be hard, but just think about this,
and maybe this is something that you journal about,
maybe you journal about, you know,
it being okay to disagree or what that would
look like for you or why maybe it's hard,
or maybe you talk about this in therapy.
But it's a really important component of being assertive.
And my eighth tip is be willing to compromise.
You know that song like,
♪ you can't always get what you want. ♪
We just can't, we have to be able to compromise.
Everybody has a different perspective.
People aren't always going to be able to bend to our way.
Being assertive, remember, isn't being aggressive,
it's just asserting what we need.
If someone's like hey, I totally get it,
but I just can't do that right now,
like I would love to go over here with you,
but I have to go this way 'cause I have an appointment.
Who knows?
People just aren't gonna be like always
able to meet us and do what we want.
We just have to work together and maybe come to a compromise
like hey, I'll do what you want this time,
and we'll do what you want next time.
And honestly, those are the healthiest relationships.
Relationship filled with compromise and understanding.
And so, just be willing to do that.
Don't go into being assertive thinking,
I'm gonna get everything I want every time,
because you'll only be disappointed and potentially
push back into our old passive or aggressive ways.
My ninth and final tip, see, I did remember,
sometimes I don't remember all the numbers, my bad,
but my ninth tip is to be aware of toxic people.
Some people always want to fight.
Or they won't hear your side or they'll put you down.
They'll talk over you,
keep raising their voice so that you can't be heard,
and finally, you quiet down.
They just sometimes don't even
allow for clear communication to exist.
They can make it impossible.
Sometimes in those situations we can't assert ourselves,
and we have to recognize when to let that relationship go.
But you can't do that, I just want to tell you,
you can't just let a relationship go
if you've never tried to talk it out.
You do have to try before writing them off, okay?
But I want you to keep that in mind that some people
don't allow for real communication
and relationships to grow.
Some people are toxic.
Some relationships are just a bad recipe.
It could be that we just trigger
each other every time we hang out.
There can be a lot of reasons,
but I just want you to keep that in mind that
sometimes being assertive and having healthy,
direct, clear communication isn't possible.
We're not responsible for that.
We're only responsible to clean our side of the road, right?
We have to keep our own stuff together, that's on them.
But I just want you to keep that in mind that,
let's say we tried, we tried to be assertive,
and we tried to just say hey,
I don't like it when you do that or this is something
that I really need or whatever it is,
we tried to communicate, and they lashed out,
they fought back.
We tried to calm, we tried to talk it out,
and it just hasn't worked.
Maybe it's time that we let that relationship go,
but I would encourage you, again,
you have to try to talk to them about it first.
We have to give them an opportunity
because sometimes people just,
maybe they don't know any better.
Maybe they struggled to be
assertive and tend to be aggressive.
Just give 'em the time that they need,
try your best, and know your limits,
and it's okay to be like, you know what,
I just don't think our relationship's gonna be
as close as it used to be, and that's okay too.
I hope you found this helpful.
So many of you asked about this after
my video about why it's so hard to say no.
So I hope I gave you some like tangible and,
you know, doable tools so that you can use them
in your life to be more assertive and less aggressive,
passive, or even passive-aggressive.
Thank you so much for watching.
Oh, leave any of your tips and tools
and tricks in those comments down below,
and I will see you next time.
Bye.
(mellow lounge music)