How To Be More Assertive Now!

Do you have a hard time speaking up for yourself, being assertive? Maybe you don't do it when you want to. There's that moment I should say something and you hesitate and you hold back. Or maybe you do occasionally speak up, but it's kind of like a weak, floppy noodle experience and you don't. They don't seem to be affected. You don't get the results that you want and you're frustrated for whatever reason because of a challenge. With assertiveness. They then watch this episode because you're learn how to be assertive now. Welcome to another episode of the Art of Extraordinary Confidence. I'm your host, Dr. Aziz, bestselling author of the book Not Nice, which I'm going to be drawing from in this episode. There's an entire chapter, it's like a mega chapter. It's like an 80 page chapter on speak up and how to speak up for yourself. And that's what I'm going to be drawing from. So if you haven't checked out this book, do so. It will give you a wealth of information about how to be more assertive. Speak up for yourself. Stop being afraid of what other people think of you and being the most bold, powerful version of you. So assertiveness, here's the thing. You probably know when you need to do more of it. You know, because you feel frustrated, you feel resentful. There's a reoccurring pattern with a housemate or a colleague or a co worker or a friend or a partner or in your love life where it annoys you, it bothers you, it's uncomfortable, you feel irritated or frustrated. Because when we don't assert ourselves, it often emerges as resentment and frustration, irritation and desire to get away from that person. But sometimes you can't get away from them, especially if you live with them or you work with them. So you got to speak up for yourself. So that's the first thing is to acknowledge when something is bothering me instead of trying to stuff it down or trying to say, well, I should be more tolerant. Oh, hey, everyone does that, or everyone this, or you can't have it all, or well, whatever stories you tell yourself instead say, yeah, I don't like it. Maybe this is an opportunity to be assertive. In fact, be on the lookout with yourself because you probably have a lot of patterns that keep you silent. Comes to your nice person conditioning, which I talk about in the book as well. So you're gonna want to start to notice when that urge to speak up arises. The next thing you need to do is speak up. I know. And in the book, I talk about our biggest fears around it and imagine they're gonna get upset with us and it's not gonna go well and it's gonna be awful. It's gonn. And you need to upgrade your map of relationships and realize that actually speaking up is healthy and it builds stronger bonds and it's essential for ongoing relationships. If you want to have a long, sustained relationship, and this includes business relationship, friendship, romantic relationship, and you don't have any conflict, any disagreement, any times where you need to speak up about something that's bothering you, then that relationship is either distant or doomed. There is no way it can be a strong, thriving relationship. So we have to speak up for ourselves, and we have to stop avoiding that conflict. Now, how do we actually speak up for ourselves? Well, here's a quick summary for you to start using today. The first thing you need to do is find out what is the thing that you don't like, what's going on, and then you need to bring up that thing. Because here's a tip. When people realize they need to be more assertive and they've spent decades of their life avoiding conflict, they say, all right, all right, fine, fine, I'll speak up for myself. Let me figure out exactly the right way to be assertive and know the exact wording and plan out the conversation 87 times in my head and deliver it perfectly. And then, and then it's going to be such a smooth, perfect interaction that they're going to say, oh, my God, I'm so sorry, I didn't realize, and let me change my ways. And then it's going to be perfect afterwards. And there was really no actual conflict. Like, there was no upset, there was no frustration, there was no negative feelings. So we're trying to have the conversation and still avoid the conflict. That is not going to work. You need to speak directly to the issue. You need to confront the issue and solve the problem. So bring up the thing, the specific thing. But here's the way you do it. It's most effective. Instead of, you know, let's say they said they were going to send you something via email as a work situation, they're going to get you some document, do something, some part of their version of their end of the workload, the project, and. And they don't do it right. Another example is maybe someone in your house, your partner, someone you're living with, does something that, you know, they leave a mess in the kitchen or whatever. So these are just Hypothetical examples, family or house and work situation. What you need to do is you need to bring up the exact thing and then do this with a tone though, instead of an accusatory tone, like, what the fuck is going on in the kitchen, man? Gee, God. Dah. Right? It's not going to go so well. You bring it up with curiosity. And the magic phrase for this, which I share in the book, is I noticed, I noticed. Hey, I noticed that the kitchen was. There's a lot of dishes everywhere. It's kind of a mess in there. Hey, I noticed that. I checked my email. I didn't see an email from you yesterday. Right. So there's the thing I noticed. Speak directly to the issue as neutral as you can. That first go around, then wait and see. I mean, and if there's more detail, like you guys already had a pre existing agreement that they broke, like, hey, I noticed I didn't get that email yesterday. We talked about that on Monday and you told me that you were gonna get it to me by Wednesday. Right. So again, it's neutral. You're just describing the situation and then be quiet. This is the hardest part. We want to either launch into our reason why they're bad or we want to apologize or say a bunch of weird qualifiers like, I'm being. I know I'm being demanding. I'm sorry. Just quiet, hold it and let them speak, See what they say. You're gathering information because a lot of time in a situation where we're pissed off or something's bothering us, we don't have all the data, we don't have all the information. So we want to find out more. So bring it up. And your purpose is to like have an actual conversation where you might learn something, you might find out what's going on with them. Well, why do they. Maybe they left the kitchen a mess because, you know, this happens a lot with me and my wife Candice. You know, I already know this by now. Why the kitchen would be a mess is because there's something going on with our two little boys. So she's like, you know, do the best she can to manage these two ruffians, these hooligans. And so, yeah, she didn't get to the kitchen. Right. So the same thing when, let's say someone doesn't send an email when they say they're going to, instead of being like, what? They must be irresponsible. It's like, well, hold on a second, maybe something really significant came up. Maybe. And I've had this happen with A team member of mine, maybe. I sent them like three requests to do other things that were, like I indicated, higher priority. And so they were taking care of those things and they didn't get to that email. So there's a lot going on. So you want to go in with actual curiosity, not just fake curiosity. Like, all right, I'm going to be curious and then I'm going to knife them. No, actual curiosity. You're going to learn something. That's level one. See how that goes at the end of that conversation. If you can create an agreement that is optimal. So you're saying that you're going to be able to get that to me by Thursday, end of day, Is that right? Is that something we can agree on? Awesome. So you're saying whatever agreement you want to create with your household, that sort of thing. So you come up with a clear agreement. Here is the place where so far, I usually haven't lost anyone when I'm teaching assertiveness, especially nice people, they're like, yeah, okay, that sounds good. Curious. That sounds like not a very scary conversation. It's a little uncomfortable. Not too bad. But what happens if that shit doesn't work? Well, you tried that assertiveness thing and it didn't work. So whatever, just go back to the way it was. No, assertiveness is almost never a one and done kind of interaction. Well, we talked about it once, very peaceably, and it was done nice. No, what's going to happen is it's going to come up again. The person's going to break the agreement or whatever, and then you need to have another conversation with them. And the biggest problem I've seen with clients and other people is this is they repeat the first step. Hey, I noticed that you didn't send me that email again. And what's happening, what's going on? Talk about it, you know, and look, that's not. You've. That, you've already done that. Now you need, you need to have a little more of you in it. You need to have a little more emotion in it. You need to have a little more conflict in it. So my guess is that when they didn't send that damn email again, you were frustrated, or when you got in the kitchen, it was a mess again, or they did whatever the agreement that you had is and they didn't do it again, you're pissed off. And what, and this is where the letting go of our nice training is that you want to show that you can show frustration, you can show irritation. Not only can you but when you do, it's actually more impactful. It gets through to the other person. They're like, oh, shit, she means business. Right? And now the way, again, there's a skillful way to do this. Not aggression, not yelling and screaming, not just, like, losing your shit, because that actually makes you lose power. People see you as, like, irrational or out of control or whatever. And also not character attacking others. You are a lazy slob. You're this. You are irresponsible. You can't handle stuff. You, you, you. And every saying you in sort of a blaming or criticizing way, it's not going to go well. So we want to do is use I language. I'm frustrated right now. When I see the kitchen like this, I get frustrated. When you do this in the. In the work situation, I get frustrated. I'm feeling frustrated right now. We had an agreement, so I might actually communicate literally like this. All right, well, right now I'm feeling frustrated because we had an agreement. We talked about. Well, first we talked about it on Monday. Then I talked about it with you again on Wednesday, and we got clarity as to why you didn't give me that thing. And now we agreed on Thursday, end of day, and now it's Friday, and I don't still have it. And this is frustrating for me because I need to do X, Y and Z, and I can't until I get that from you. And I don't even know. I don't know what I can say to make you get that to me or what's going on. But I think we need to talk about this because this is not working. I might say something in that exact tone, that exact language, everything. And notice how that sounds. I'm not. I mean, it's firm, it's strong, there's frustration in it, there's directness in it. But I'm not attacking the other person. Right. I'm not being aggressive towards them. And that's one of the distinctions between assertiveness, aggression. Okay, great. Now, though, what happens if it still doesn't work? If they're like, oh, yeah, no, totally my mistake. Yeah, I'll get you that thing. Definitely. End of day today, end of day Friday, you'll get it, I swear. I got you. I got you. And then they don't. What do you do? Well, the next level of assertiveness is there's got to be some consequence. And it's unfortunate, but that's how humans work sometimes. We gotta have some consequence. So whether that's writing the person up or reporting it to someone else or letting someone know, like, hey, if you do this, this is not going to work for me. We're going to have to change this or we're going to have to take you off this project or whatever consequence. And it depends upon the relationship, how much leverage you have and what kind of consequence you come up with. Like, if this is, let's say, your long term life partner and you have some conflict about a household issue, you might not be like, well, if you don't clean that bowl and sink, I'm going to divorce you. Like, I wouldn't recommend that. But you know, example of a consequence in this situation might be more like, hey, let's see what we can figure out here. Because basically I'm not willing to do all of the housework here. And so if you don't carry your weight, then the household is not going to function right. So that's sort of a consequence you're bringing up. You're also saying, like, I'm not going to carry the weight and like, we need to figure this out again. Notice how it's direct. It's a lot of working with people. Assertive. Sometimes people think assertiveness is like kicking down the door and being like, all right, now I'm here to lay down the law. You do this and you do that. Like, look, no matter how good you get at assertiveness, you still don't have control over other humans. You can't make them do things. Best thing you can do is try to relate to them, connect with them and influence them. So these are some very powerful strategies and tips on how to do this. Of course, check out my book. Not nice. If you want to go further with this, you can get it on Amazon, Audible, Kindle, all the good stuff and subscribe. Or subscribe to this video and also share your comments below. What are you finding most valuable? What are you learning about assertiveness? Share an example or an experience where you have been assertive. We can all support each other and learn from each other. And until we speak again, you have the courage to be who you are and to know on a deep level that you're awesome. Talk to you soon.