Assert Yourself: Simple Steps to Build Your Confidence

Part Two of this book offers a programme of exercises which could be completed in approximately eight weekly sessions of two hours each. The appropriate theory can be introduced in the form of posters and handouts derived from the text in Part One.

By using the book in this way, the responsibility for leading the group could be shared by some or all of the participants.

3. A Handbook for Individuals

If for some reason you are unable, or unwilling, to join a self-help group, this basic programme can be adapted for use on your own at home.

At the end of each practical exercise I have made some suggestions about how you could achieve this. I suggest, as with self-help groups, you could work on one short session each week over a period of two months. It is important to cover the basic ground very thoroughly and not to try too much too quickly. You may need more self-discipline and motivation to work in this way, but it should still be possible to make some effective progress.

Introduction to 2001 Edition (#u674dd391-9bae-54c0-adf0-b4e94a8d0e91)

What a strange and moving experience it was for me to revisit this book! It brought back so many wonderful memories of the excitement we felt when doing this ‘groundbreaking work’ over 25 years ago. It is hard to believe how few people at that time had even heard the word ‘Assertiveness’. Now it is part of our everyday language. A whole generation has grown up taking it for granted that they ought to be more assertive – and, feeling full of guilt because they are not!

It is of course one thing knowing how we would like to behave, and quite another trying to stop ourselves from acting too often like a doormat or a raging bull. I know, because it was the position I had been in for many, many years before I came across Assertiveness Training. Its simple easy-to-learn techniques changed my life. That is why I became so committed to doing this work and spreading the word. Interestingly, many of the participants on our early courses and readers of this book have done just the same. I have had many letters and calls from people who wanted to let me know that they had been inspired to start training groups in their schools, offices, hospitals, churches and community centres. This was wondrous music to my ears, which had previously been filled with the whispering of cynics who said our work would breed selfishness and ego-centredness.

Assertiveness Training has proved itself to be so much more than a therapy for ‘losers’. It is now an established method of teaching anyone to communicate more openly, honestly and calmly and to stand up for both their and other people’s basic human rights.

Another reason for its appeal to me is that at its core is the win/win principle. This may not be one that can, or indeed should, always guide our behaviour, but when it does it undoubtedly brings both inner and outer harmony. And who doesn’t need a little more of that in their lives today?!

Finally, I’d just like to add that the writing of this book was a triumph for my own fledgling assertiveness. I had grown up with a deeply held conviction that I was an exceedingly bad writer. Assertiveness Training instilled in me a new belief that I had a right to say what I wanted to say. It was this belief that inspired and motivated me to persist, however many dyslexic errors I committed to the page, and however long it took me to do! Two years after I started, we published the book ourselves, and my husband travelled the country taking its first few hundred copies to bookshops himself. When this supply ran out, a client of mine asked my permission to take it to a small publisher of ‘alternative’ books. Now, 18 years later, I have 10 best-selling books to my name, and my publishers, Thorsons, are widely acknowledged to be leaders in one of the fastest growing sectors of the book trade.

I hope this updated version of Assert Yourself will help you to make the changes in yourself and your life that you know you want and deserve.

ONE (#ulink_f0a2b87f-c561-5447-bacd-2b3482386ec9)

CHAPTER 1 (#ulink_15e081ff-d667-5fcf-9956-6816567c2cf2)

Arguments for Assertiveness (#ulink_15e081ff-d667-5fcf-9956-6816567c2cf2)

What is Assertiveness?

The word assertiveness is used to describe a certain kind of behaviour. It is behaviour which helps us to communicate clearly and confidently our needs, wants and feelings to other people without abusing in any way their human rights. It is an alternative to passive, aggressive and manipulative behaviour.

If we want to be assertive we must:

• decide what we want

• decide if it is fair

• ask clearly for it

• not be afraid of taking risks

• be calm and relaxed

• express our feelings openly

• give and take compliments easily

• give and take fair criticism.

We must not:

• beat about the bush

• go behind people’s backs

• bully

• call people insulting names

• bottle up our feelings.

Very few people manage to be assertive in all areas of their life. Some of us manage to be assertive at home but have difficulties at work. Others may be fine when they are working but are unable to assert themselves within their personal relationships.

Why Are We Unassertive?

Those of us who are parents will remember only too well how little fear our new-born babies had about communicating their needs and feelings in an open and direct manner! As babies they may not have acquired the more sophisticated assertive skills of judging whether their demands are fair, or making requests in a calm relaxed manner, but they certainly do not beat about the bush!

Very quickly, however, children learn to adapt their behaviour according to the kind of response their requests receive. They may learn that by behaving as a good, quiet, sweet little child they get the goodies that they need or want. Alter-natively, they may find that shouting, screaming and kicking brings a quicker and more satisfying response.

At school, children also go through the same unconscious learning process. There, they may find that the behaviour that worked best at home does not get the same results at school. They begin to experiment with different approaches and responses. I can remember still the feeling of astonishment I had when I went to my first Parents’ Interview evening at my daughter’s school. The quietly spoken, shy little girl that the teacher was describing seemed so amazingly different from the lively, noisy toddler I had known at home for the last few years!

Of course, my daughter had not consciously adapted her behaviour. She had done so instinctively in response to the world she happened to be born into. Her unconscious brain had been working hard on her behalf without her consent! It had been testing out the environment it found itself in, and then getting down to the business of building into its structure a tailor-made and unique basic ‘operating programme’ to help my daughter survive for the rest of her life. Most of its basic work had already been done in her first year of life, but it would still carry on being fine tuned throughout her childhood.

So our relationships and experiences of these early years are a vital influence on the way we will automatically respond to the world for the rest of our lives. If our demands for physical and emotional nourishment were well met, we grow up expecting them to continue to be met. We do not automatically feel anxious whenever we need to ask for what we need and want. As far as the child is concerned, it’s all a matter of luck. We are ‘blessed’ (or not) with a concoction of genes that will predispose us to become a certain kind of person. We may have inherited shy genes from our grandfather or a fiery, wilful one from our mother. Then we are thrust out into a world that either makes it easy or difficult for us to survive with the temperament we have.

But, as far as parents and teachers, and other carers of young children are concerned, we cannot pass the buck on to luck. How we act in response to this child and its needs will make a lasting impression on its impressionable brain.

In our sophisticated Western society, we generally cater for the physical and intellectual needs of children reasonably well. Catering adequately for their emotional needs on the other hand, is often not so easily achieved.

If we wish our children to grow up into confident, assertive adults, we will need to provide them with the following:

• an example of assertive behaviour – someone who is assertive with them and whom they trust and respect and will want to be like

• love and encouragement – to build up a sense of their own worth

• caring criticism – to enable them to see themselves, their actions, and their demands realistically

• a sense of values – to help them assess their own and others’ rights

• a basic feeling of security – to enable them to experiment with risks and make mistakes.

This is, of course, a very tall order which very few of us can meet. We can take comfort from this proverb:

Of course it isn’t only the influence of our parents that we must examine in order to find the cause of our unassertive behaviour. There are many other factors to take into consideration such as:

• our position in the family – were we the first, middle or last child?