Being assertive means standing up for yourself, which is really the whole thing about social anxiety.
If we're stressed about our needs, it makes it that much harder to communicate what we want or need, because the simple act of communicating is stressful. We avoid conflict at any cost because it's easier. We are especially stressed when the conversation is uncomfortable, "I don't want you to do that because I'm not sure I have to time but I can't say no so I'll be resentful."
Learning assertive communication is an effective way of expressing yourself that allows for consideration of the thoughts, feelings and needs of both you and the person with whom you are communicating.
You have to allow yourself the freedom to express your opinions.
How to do it
Assertiveness isn’t about winning or being pushy and selfish. Being Assertive means:
Active listening, reflecting back (paraphrasing) to the other person both words and feelings expressed by that person.
Identifying your position: stating your thoughts and feelings about the situation.
Exploring alternative solution: brainstorming other possibilities; rating the pros and cons; ranking the possible solutions
It’s a way of communicating that is honest, clear, and direct in stating your opinions and needs, while also listening to and respecting the needs of others. You have to own and take responsibility for your thoughts and opinions, and state them as your own.
But that's a big problem. And almost all communication feels like conflict when you're socially anxious.
Cognitive Behavior Therapy (CBT) has a method for that! The methods for being assertive go like this: 1. Understand the types of communicating- fully get to know passive vs. aggressive vs. assertive 2. Identify and rank situations where you have trouble being assertive 3. Common assumptions vs your rights (free worksheet, linked to the left) 4. Confront your fears about being assertive (free worksheet, linked to the left) 5. Understanding and dealing with criticism (ugh) & Actual assertive communication techniques 6. Making an Assertive Statement
Types of Communication
If you are socially anxious, you may have some difficulty expressing your thoughts and feelings openly.
Assertiveness skills can be difficult to learn, especially since being assertive can mean holding yourself back from the way you would normally do things.
For example, you may be afraid of conflict, always go along with the crowd, and avoid offering your opinions. As a result, you may have developed a passive communication style. Or, you may want to control situations so much that you might have developed an aggressive communication style. Or a combination of both, like when you're passive at school, but aggressive at home.
Assertiveness can be thought of as a middle point between being passive and being aggressive. Passive behavior occurs when you focus on the needs and desires of another person, but ignore your own needs and wishes. In contrast, aggressive behavior occurs when you force your own needs on others.
Learning Assertive Communication can help. For example, it can help you to relate to others more genuinely, with less anxiety and resentment. It also gives you more control over your life, and reduces feelings of helplessness. Furthermore, it allows OTHER people the right to live their lives.
Your Bill of Rights
Read it again: You have to own and take responsibility for your thoughts and opinions, and state them as your own.
That's pretty much impossible for us.
Thankfully, science has us covered: Assertive Bill of Rights. This is almost as important as the United State's Bill of Rights, because it allows us to own and take responsibility for thoughts and opinions, and state them as our own.
Science has presented us with a valuable tool. If you look it up, you can find a gazillion different versions of this, but it's pretty much a list like this:
1. The right to be treated with respect. 2. The right to have and express your own feelings and opinions. 3. The right to be listened to and taken seriously. 4. The right to set your own priorities. 5. The right to say NO without feeling guilty. 6. The right to get what you pay for. 7. The right to make mistakes. 8. The right to choose not to assert yourself.
You can make up your own Bill of Rights depending on your cognitive distortions, or negative thoughts that make you anxious.
A note about Assertive Listening
In all situations, you will need to really listen and block out all the anxious noise (the beehive) in your brain. To listen, you need to focus your attention on the other person so that you can accurately hear the their opinions, feelings and wishes. Use the techniques of Slowing Down and Time Out (listed below) when appropriate.
1. Prepare: Become aware of your own feelings and needs. Are you ready to listen? Are you sure that the other person is ready to speak?
2. Listen: Give your full attention to the other person: listen to the speaker’s perspective, feelings, and wants. If you are uncertain about one of these three elements, ask the speaker for more information.
Examples: ‘I’m not quite sure how you view the situation could you say more about it?’ ‘How do you feel about this?’ ‘I don’t understand what you want. Could you be more specific?
3. Acknowledge: Communicate to the other person that you heard them using reflective listening.
For example, ‘I get you. You don’t want to take on this new project because you’re feeling overwhelmed with your current responsibilities and want to catch up’.
Another way to acknowledge the other person’s feelings is to share your own feelings about what has been said: 'I’m feeling overwhelmed too. I feel really bad that you have to do more work.’
Assertive Communication Techniques
Many of these techniques are conflict resolution because almost all social interaction can feel like conflict.
Specifically, anything that involve directions. To some of us, directions feel like accusations. Accusations are criticism. And, no one likes criticism.
Through this process, we learned having a positive mindset means not letting criticism get you down, but rather to use the words to grow.
It feels like convincing yourself that brushing up against barbed wire or walking on pigweed in bare feet by accident can be a good thing. It's more like gathering stinging nettle to make a healthy tea.
And if you get really good at it, you might be able to gather the stinging nettle with actually getting stung. (Seriously have you ever tried to gather it without gloves??)
These are assertive strategies for dealing with criticism will help keep relationships and self-esteem intact:
1) Acknowledgment: When someone offers constructive criticism, you can use this feedback to improve yourself. When you have made a mistake, having someone point it out to you can be helpful in preventing future errors. Whenever you receive criticism with which you agree, whether it is constructive or simply a reminder, acknowledge that the critic is right. You do not need to give excuses or apologize for your behavior.
"You're right, my pencil doesn't have an eraser."
2) Fogging or Clouding: This is best used when the person is trying to put you down to try to make themselves look or feel better. Dealing with a bully.
They will blame you, or insult you. Manipulative critics are expert at name-calling and you-messages. They bring up old history. They use absolutes such as always, never and everyone.
Never try to reason with them because you only give them more ammunition for their case. They are not interested in listening to you, even when they ask you a question. Their fragile egos require them to be right and to always win their point.
Even though it's hard to just sit and listen and not have some nasty thoughts which fuel some strong emotions, an angry or passive response is likely to escalate the issue.
This a method for denying requests or disagreeing with someone while showing them that you are above it. You will still recognize and respect that person’s position. It works really well when you're dealing with aggressiveness or bullying:
Summarize the other person’s feelings
Explain why you cannot, or choose not to, comply with that person’s request.
3) Probing: Sometimes it's hard to figure out why someone would say something to you. Are they trying to help you and merely going about it awkwardly? Are they trying to hurt you but pretending to be helpful? Are their comments actually hiding unspoken beliefs, feelings, and desires? Especially if the critic is someone who matters to you, you may want to probe further into the criticism to answer these questions.
This requires listening carefully – a super hard thing to do when someone is giving you criticism.
This technique is best remembered as "nothing to defend."
If you take on the attitude that you need more information rather than that you need to defend yourself, you can remain calm. Be a detective.
Manipulative criticism that isn't constructive that you disagree with needs some definition. There is both style and content to criticism.
We get defensive because of the style of the critic, while the content is not as problematic. Listen closely to the communication and identify the style and content.
The style may be perceived as aggressive and the content true. Or the style may be perceived as merely assertive and the content not true. Or the content may be perceived as both true and not true depending upon certain circumstances.
By having no points to defend and by asking the questions about the reasons the person is saying what they are, you may learn something about yourself and others.
Most people who are not trying to take advantage of you will find your neutral response very powerful. Those who are trying to be manipulative will find it difficult to deal with. They want you to be defensive – this is what verifies the effectiveness of the attack.
4) The content-to-process shift The purpose of this tool is to get the conversation shifted back to the original topic and away from the manipulative criticism.
You can do it several ways. Agree with the truth: Find a statement that is truthful and agree with that statement. "Sometimes I'm busy" Agree with the odds: Agree with any possible truth in the statement. "Some people are busier than others." Agree in principle: Agree with the general truth in a logical statement. “That makes sense.” State the obvious: Make observations and ignore the comments. "You seem angry. Is it because I'm busy?"
You state a simple observation about the nature of the interaction while ignoring the content of the interaction entirely.
5) Time out: When you feel like you're not getting anywhere, you may want to postpone the conversation until another time. Time out is useful when the interaction is either too passive or too aggressive. One of you may be silent, crying, distracted, unready to make a decision, or agreeing with everything the other says. Or perhaps one of you is hitting below the belt by name-calling, bringing up ancient complaints, or being manipulatively critical.
6) Slowing down: You have to respond immediately to every situation. You don’t have to produce an instant answer. With anxiety, we don't think well on our feet and need to think things over before a response. The conversation may feel like it's going too fast, and you may say something that you don't feel good about after you get to think about it. Slowing down allow you to:
Be sure that you understand what the speaker has said.
Process what has been said.
Become aware of what you think, feel and want in regard to what has been said.
Avoid saying things that you may regret later.
Have control in the outcome
Things you can say to slow down an interaction:
This is way too important to race through…let’s slow down.
That’s an interesting point…let me think about it for a moment.
Wait a minute. I want to give you my honest answer.
Is this what I hear you saving?, (Repeat what you think you heard while taking time to take it in and reflect on it.)
I’m not sure I understand …could you say that again?
7) The broken record technique: The key is persistent repetition in the face of adversity. Remember your legitimate rights [See Form CBT#23-004] so you're not manipulated into giving in. Occasionally, you encounter people who will not take ‘no’ for an answer. When you set limits and someone else is having difficulty getting your message, you need to take a stand and stick to it.
The broken-record technique is useful for situations in which another person will not acknowledge or accept your message. If he or she continues pushing, you simply repeat the same statement, keeping your tone of voice constant, without becoming upset. Eventually, the person will be forced to accept your refusal.
First clearly, specifically say what you do want or do not want to have happen, using “I” statements. For instance, “I won’t be able to walk with you today after school”
Allow the other person to respond and if they do not accept what you say, stick to your guns and rephrase your statement. “I understand you have a lot going on today, but I won’t be able to go.”
The other person may now up the ante by manipulating or guilt-tripping you. Again, assertively say, “I'm sorry that you feel that way but that’s not really relevant to the main issue, which is that I cannot walk with you today.”
Repeat, as often as you need to without letting the interruptions of the other person confuse you and without making excuses for why you can’t do what he asks you to do. In most cases, the other individual will give in and agree.
Making an Assertive Statement
Since you digested all of the above, you're ready for an Assertive Statement.
This is for the times when you need to approach someone else with an issue.
The issue may be a small one, such as where to have dinner with your friend. The issue may be a major one, such as explaining to your teacher why you deserve a better grade. You need to express your position clearly and fully, because partial communication can lead to misunderstandings and frustration.
Once you create your Bill of Rights, you can:
1. Know what you want: Be clear with yourself and others about what you want and when. 2. Say what you want: If you do not communicate what you want clearly, how will others know? 3. Get what you want: Through clear communication, persistence, and determination, you are more likely to get what you need.
You have to do all three to be assertive. Your Assertive Statement should look like this:
Your perspective on the situation
Your feelings
Your wants
A reinforcement to motivate the other person to cooperate
In a pinch, you can memorize this little formula: Using “I statements” to show that you clearly own and state what it is that you need or are asking for. We want to avoid blaming others and also diluting our statements behind questions or sarcasm.
Address the person by formal title State: “I have a concern.” Provide details of the concern. Provide another course of action. Seek the approval to do the other course of action.