Why bother changing anything at all?

Yes, even at this stage of the book this is worth asking. ‘Why bother changing anything it all?’ is a really important question because, actually, learning to be assertive and committing to implementing a more assertive existence for yourself means doing some work!

And it takes time. How many of us really have time available? And also, isn’t it a little bit self-indulgent? I mean, we’ve managed this way so far haven’t we? Is it really that important? Well, yes, in short. You are the most important person in your world and you deserve this. And if you need reminding, go back to the introduction and re-read that.

It is important, though, to recognise that changing behaviours can feel terrifying because we equate that to changing who we actually are. We believe that if we start to shift our assertiveness levels we will be unrecognisable and we will lose all of our friends, family and anyone else close to us and have to start building relationships all over again. Not true. You are simply choosing to fine-tune your ‘already-works-very-well-thank-you-very-much’ self. Remember that you don’t have to change much for people to realise that they cannot push you around anymore. And that can only be a good thing, right?

Identifying your own motivators

Do you know what motivates you? What are the things that might help to incentivise you to keep to your assertiveness goals and plans?

Think about something you did over the last week that you really enjoyed and describe it, explaining what you enjoyed about it here:

Now look again at what you have written and pull out the key words that tell you something about what you enjoy.

Here’s an example:

‘Last week I met up with a new friend. We went out and had a good chat about life and had a really good laugh. We had a great curry and some lovely cocktails and the night was just pure fun. We got on like a house on fire, we like the same music. I feel like I have met a friend for life.’

Okay what does that tell you about me? I like people, bonding, having fun, good food and drink, I also like music and love thinking things through and putting the world to rights, while having a laugh.

Because this is what I have chosen to talk about (and I did do a lot of other things last week besides this) then it gives you a good indication of what really motivates me.

So now, what motivates you?

And how does this translate into keeping you on track in terms of your assertiveness?

Using my example above, it is important for me to build good relations and understanding with people. Also, if I don’t tackle any issues of work expectations being too huge on me, I will end up being resentful and destroying relations and the opportunity of bonding with people. So I am now really motivated to have that conversation with the people I feel are putting those expectations on me.

That is what is important to me and motivates me. It may well be completely different for you but that doesn’t matter. As long as you are using your own motivators from the derivatives above, then this exercise will work for you.

Goal n. 1 The result or achievement toward which effort is directed. 2 aim. 3 end.

Keeping your goals in mind

It is the most important thing of all when developing within your own personal spectrum of assertiveness that you keep your goals clearly in mind. Even if you don’t know what you want in terms of your assertiveness objectives then at the very least be clear what you don’t want. Once you know this you can start to look at what the opposite might look or sound like.

It is important that you define your goal using positive language. For example, you may not want people taking advantage of you anymore but what would the opposite of this be? It might be that you want to be able to set some boundaries around what you are willing to take on and have people listen to what you are saying. If you are thinking about your manager in this situation focus on the latter rather than the former, which sits in negative language and therefore becomes an unclear goal. Focus on doing rather than not doing and keep the goal as specific as you can.

It is important to be situation-specific with the goal, as a piece of assertive behaviour in one situation may not map directly across to another. (For example how you choose to set boundaries around not taking on too much work from your manager may not look the same if you are setting boundaries around not doing too much in your role as a parent.)

State what you do want to achieve in terms of your goal or outcome below. Is your goal time-specific? When do you want to reach it by? Be clear with this too.

With goals, keep in mind that you are moving forward towards them – they lie ahead. As well as this, the goal must be something that feels doable to you. When you read back what you have written above there should be a sense within you of ‘Yes, I really think I could make that happen’, rather than ‘Yeah, right, pigs might fly.’

For the goal to be reached successfully there needs to be a sense within you of how it would actually feel to be in that place. By connecting thoughts and feelings into what you want you are not only thinking your goal but experiencing it physically. As has already been pointed out in this book, everything within human beings is linked so the more holistically we can move forward, the more likely we are able to achieve our objectives. If we think assertively, we will act assertively.

By tuning in to how this goal feels we are also tuning in to our own internal communication channels, which will give us an alarm bell if we go off-track. We will ‘just know’ and be able to stop and redress the situation before we go any further, which is an extremely useful technique. It also means that we stick with the win-win in any given situation, as anything other would be counter-productive.

It is your responsibility to start the process towards achieving your goal and to keep motivating yourself along the way. It is down to you to keep it on track and be in charge of reaching your chosen destination.

Monitoring and adjusting

When you are amid your journey to being more assertive it can be difficult to remain objective and take a step back in order to keep yourself on track effectively. Here are some tips that will help you to do just that:

1. Keep your attention on the impact your behaviour shifts are having on those around you. If you have only done a fraction of what you imagined you might have to do and you have achieved your desired outcome then be flexible and pull back. You need not go any further with this.
2. Give yourself credit. When you have managed to shift a way of thinking or a piece of behaviour, even if it has not yet had the desired effect, then take the time to recognise your efforts for yourself. Remember how difficult it is to even begin to think about assertiveness in a different way. If you are starting to actually behave differently around it then that is success indeed. Acknowledge that.
3. If things aren’t working as you would like them to, then take some time to write out or jot down what has happened so far onto a piece of paper. By writing it out you are effectively taking it out of your own head and putting the situation in front of your eyes, where you literally have a very different perspective. From there it should be easier to work out what has happened and what can be flexed in order to create a different impact.

Keeping yourself inspired

Inevitably there will be occasions, while working through your own personal shifts in assertiveness when you will think, ‘Forget it! It’s just too much hard work!’ In moments like these it is useful to have some inspirational motivators to hand:

1. Go back to thinking about your own role models and what it is about them that you like so much and how their levels of assertiveness have served them.
2. Visualise the outcome. Notice how just by seeing this in your mind’s eye your feelings, thoughts and general wellbeing are affected. This could be a day-to-day reality if you stay with your goals.
3. Check in with your own feelings along the way in terms of what is working for you and what isn’t. Don’t be afraid to modify behaviours using your own instinct if things aren’t working as well as you might have hoped. Likewise, feel free to abandon things if they aren’t working. Remember that there are no rules around assertiveness and that it looks very different for each and every individual.
4. Be careful you don’t create a new list of rules around assertiveness for yourself and tenaciously keep doing something because you think it is a ‘good’ thing to do or that it is ‘right.’ Neither of these should be check-in points. Your one check-in point with yourself is this: is this working as I would like it to?

Key things to remember

You have all the resources you need to make the changes you want, it is a case of considering all the options.

What feels ‘possible in theory’ and what feels ‘possible for you, the individual’ can be reconciled by considering the various options of how things might be done in terms of your own assertive communication.

The highest quality information that can be received about other people is by being receptive to their behaviour. Through watching what people do you can make a good judgement call on what might be going on for them. Be careful of negative assumptions though.

There is no such thing as failure; there is only a check-in on how close you are getting to the goal you have set for yourself. You can change course at any point if things aren’t going as effectively as you had planned.

Pushing for what you want

There can be times while working within your personal spectrum of assertiveness when doubts can come into play. Because we are all individuals it is common for people to challenge your thinking around issues and therefore your actions. So how can you tell if you are on track or not? It can certainly be difficult when you are emotionally entrenched in a situation.

What is crucial at these moments is the fact that you take the head space or time that you need to re-evaluate what it is that is best for you in terms of the goals you want to achieve. If you keep yourself a priority in any situation, and so long as there is no ill-intention towards anybody else, then you are on track. If you think about your situation, visualise your ideal outcome and it feels right to you, then hold your nerve. Be brave and trust yourself. It is important not to doubt yourself just because somebody else voices doubt. So long as you remain conscious and keep the big picture in mind then you should trust your own intelligence and instincts.

Choosing when to let go

There will, conversely, be times when you review a situation and decide that you want to leave it be. How do you go about doing this and also making yourself okay with the decision?

This is a good time to revisit the concept of choice. We make choices through two means in life – sometimes it is passive choice and sometimes it is active choice. Where assertiveness is concerned we want to engage only with active choice.

Passive choice is something that we are unaware we have made, whereas with active choice we have made a very conscious and considered decision on a matter and that feels very different. So when you feel that something is not worth the fight, doesn’t really matter anymore or is best left alone, as long as you ensure that you have considered your options and chosen to let it go, then this still resides in assertive territory and will feel just that. You will still feel empowered and confident because you have considered the options and chosen how you would like the outcome to go. It hasn’t just happened to you and it hasn’t gone beyond your control. You will have totally taken care of what works best for both you and whoever else is concerned within any given situation.

In terms of communicating these choices, it is good to revisit some of the concepts covered in Chapter 6 around how we vocally communicate. Keep it simple and concise. Be honest, transparent and, at the same time, sensitive. Get to the point with specifics and what you would like as an outcome. You may get what you want or there may be a compromise that emerges from a conversation and negotiation. Either way you have assertively influenced the situation.

Ensuring effective communication around assertiveness

Communication breaks down easily. When we talk to each other we tend to assume that everything that makes sense in our own heads is coming across exactly that way to the other person and that they understand things exactly as we do. Unfortunately this is usually not the case. We need to be aware of this when asserting ourselves and ensure that we are aware of the reference points for the other person involved, giving voice to them so that the other person is aware that we understand them.

We need to remain mindful of the other person’s position and situation and give some acknowledgement about how they see the world, and we need to be able to convey exactly what we want to while including both points of view. It is no mean feat. It is a lot to remember to do, as well as get the clarity of your message heard and understood and establish your personal boundaries in a way that you haven’t done before. So how do you go about it then? Let’s break it down.

Do

	Take responsibility for how the information lands on the other person, as well as what you say
	Check with the other person that they are clear about what your intention has been
	Use questions (see next section)
	Change the way you convey your message if you think it may have been misunderstood
	Remember that everyone has a different life experience, which changes how they see the world and can often create misunderstandings; even people from the same family can be quite different in the way they interpret different behaviours
	Remember that facial expressions and tone of voice can help us to understand what somebody else is saying, along with the content of the message they are conveying
	Pay more attention to somebody’s actions if what they are saying seems to be in conflict with what they are doing; their actions will be truer to how they really think

Don’t

	Make an assumption about what the other person thinks based on their facial expression – check with them
	Assume that a word you use means exactly the same for another person (For example, where I am from, the North-East, ‘canny’ means lovely, in East London, where I live, it means a ‘bit dodgy’ and in Scotland it means shrewd, so I have to be clear and mention what I mean by it when having a conversation with someone from the South-East or North of the Border)

Using questions

Questions are an extremely useful way of clarifying the information we are getting from another person. It is important to keep a calm and level vocal tone when asking them and it is essential that you use a conscious silence after asking a question to give the other person the space in which to provide an answer.

There are many different types of questions and reasons why you might use them. Here are just some that are particularly useful to help work with issues around assertiveness:

1. An Open Question – this is a question that is phrased or asked so that someone can provide more than a one-word answer. These are extremely useful when we need more information about something. These questions may well begin with the words what, who, why, where or how. Very powerful open questions begin with phrases such as ‘tell me about’, ‘explain to me’, ‘give me some examples of’ or ‘describe what happens when.’ Open questions are extremely useful for getting more information on another person’s point of view. Once you have this information it is easier to assertively create a win-win solution to any problem or tricky work dynamic.
2. A Closed Question – these are usually short questions that only require a yes or no answer. They can be very useful at simply establishing facts or opinions, such as ‘Do you absolutely need this doing now?’ or ‘Is it a problem if I leave early on Thursdays?’ Be careful of using too many closed questions within a conversation as it can stifle it and make the other person feel frustrated, unheard or both.
3. Specific Questions – these are incredibly useful for assertiveness matters. They can keep things clear and to the point. For example, ‘What exactly would you like me to do when the deadline is brought forward?’
4. Hypothetical Questions – these are extremely useful when getting people to think differently in terms of finding new solutions. For example, ‘Imagine if I wasn’t a resource to pick up last-minute projects. What other options would you have available?’ These questions can serve well when trying to get other people to see different options if they are stuck in their own non-useful pattern of behaviour (such as always dumping work on the same person at short notice because they are smart and efficient).
5. Reflective Questions – these can be incredibly useful when checking in with someone to see if you have made sense of what they have just said. For example, ‘So what you’re saying is that you would be more than happy for Alex to share these last-minute project requests with me from this point on? Am I right?’ This type of question is excellent for ensuring that there is a clear understanding between people and is also great at diffusing conflict as it can help the other person feel they have been heard and that their point of view has been validated.

	He who trims himself to suit everyone will soon whittle himself away.
	Raymond Hull, playwright, screenwriter and lecturer

• Keep your assertive techniques in line with your own authentic style, only use the things that feel comfortable or doable and don’t try to do things that feel way out of your comfort range
• Make sure that your goals are clearly defined and continue moving forwards towards them
• Keep in tune with your own internal signals – feelings, thoughts and instincts – on how things are going; know that you can rely on your internal system to keep you on track
• Take responsibility for setting your goal specifically and doing whatever needs to be done to keep yourself on track; be honest with yourself and always consider the range of options you have available
• Remember to check how your communications are landing with the other person – check in if you need to, use their terms of reference and acknowledge their point of view, or change tactics if you need to
• Hold your nerve on your decision if you genuinely believe you are on the right track; be sure to check in with the bigger picture so you can evaluate this objectively