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Thursday, March 2, 2023

Ways to Help You Be More Assertive

Assertiveness skills can help you in all areas of you life. One way that it helps, it is a way to help build your self esteem/confidence. It allows you to stand up for yourself and get whatever point you’re needing to make across. The definition for assertive is “the quality of being confident and not frightened to say what you want or believe.” There is a difference between assertiveness, passive and aggressive. Passive’s definition is “accepting or allowing what happens or what others do, without active response or resistance”. Aggressive’s definition is “ready or likely to attack or confront; characterized by or resulting from aggression.”

Ways to be assertive in a nonverbal manner are to stand up straight and to directly face people you are speaking to while maintaining their eye contact. Maintaining eye contact can be a difficult thing for a lot of us so looking at the bridge of their nose, forehead or ears is a way still appear to still be making eye contact. 

Role playing also helps us practice being more assertive so that when it comes to doing it in our daily lives, we are more ready to do it. Plan ahead boundaries that you’re comfortable with keeping, that will also help you be more assertive as well. As always, start small with your assertive skills! If you start with something too big, it becomes too overwhelming and we’re less likely to keep it up! 

Carmen Stites, LCPC and RPT

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