The 8 most important aspects to develop assertiveness

Assertiveness is much more than a way of communicating; allows us to maintain a balanced self-esteem, makes it possible for us to take advantage of the opportunities that arise in our path, and also they facilitate the prevention of misunderstandings and conflicts by others (often caused by not saying the important things to weather).

And it is that knowing how to say no, for example, is a skill with many more psychological implications than it seems at first; and the same goes for daring to take the step of applying for a promotion at work, defending yourself against unfair criticism, or not accepting an unfavorable agreement.

In this article we will review the main key aspects that can be worked on to develop assertivenessboth in private and professional life.

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What does it mean to apply assertiveness to relationships?

Assertiveness is a fundamental concept both in the world of Social Psychology and, in the applied field, in the world of organizations, business communication and team management. It is the ability to apply strategies used to express important ideas or opinions at the right time.

without allowing the fear of causing discomfort or generating a relatively intense emotional reaction to lead to a confused message, too “made up”, or even to say nothing and leave that conversation for another time (falling into procrastination).

On the other hand, in assertiveness there is a healthy balance between defending the interests of oneself or of the team or organization to which one belongs, on the one hand, and respect for the interests and way of being of the interlocutor. For this reason, being assertive is not simply about communicating something unilaterally, without worrying about how someone who listens or reads what we say will feel; it also implies saying it adapting to their personality, their expectations, or even their cultural baggage, but without letting that serve as an excuse to fool ourselves and not communicate what we really should communicate.

Currently there are many studies that reflect how useful it is to be assertive: it allows you to prevent the appearance of conflicts in time, it helps to progress professionally and to defend one's own candidacy for a position, it makes it less difficult to get out of toxic relationships, it is a key piece in the skills of negotiation etc Also, luckily, assertiveness can be trained through learning, and that is why in many cases it is one of the skills enhanced in psychotherapy processes, by helping patients patients to face their fears and make their social environment support them from others, and not obstacles added.

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What to do to develop assertiveness?

As we anticipated, assertiveness can be trained in the context of psychotherapy (if the patient's problem so requires), and in fact, the most effective way to make progress in this regard is to go to a psychologist, to benefit from the personalized treatment of professionals who are experts in behavior human. Now, there are some key ideas and strategies that can also help you to work on assertiveness on your own. Let's see what they are.

1. Learn to control time

If we do not establish temporal references, it is very easy for us not to apply sufficient assertiveness and that we end up putting off important conversations again and again. That is why it is key to establish deadlines and know what priority to give to each thing that we communicate.

2. Quickly recognize self-sabotaging thoughts

The great enemies of assertiveness are self-sabotaging thoughts, ideas that come into our mind when we begin to experience stress or anxiety at the prospect of doing something and that we offer excuses to fool ourselves and not move from desires to actions.

• Related article: "What are trap thoughts and how to prevent them?"

3. Knowing how to connect with past satisfactory experiences linked to assertiveness

To communicate assertively it is important to self-motivate ourselves in that direction, and for this it is very useful keep in mind the memories of situations in which, even though we were afraid to say something, we ended up taking the step and our situation improved considerably.

4. Learn from mistakes

On the other hand, it is also important to know how to detect those situations in which we were not assertive enough and analyze the problematic consequences that this generated, in order to prevent something like this from happening again.

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5. Develop good analytical skills

To communicate assertively, it is essential to be able to break down into smaller parts what we think we should say, in order to select the most relevant elements to which we should give priority and prevent them from going unnoticed when issuing our message.

6. show empathy

As we have seen, assertiveness also includes the ability to adapt the message without letting that take away information. important or give rise to misunderstandings, while respecting the interlocutor and, as far as possible, avoiding feel bad This is why it is crucial to develop empathy; not only for the ethical aspect, but also because what the other person interprets from our attitude and our intentions can also modify their interpretation of what we say.

7. practice self-care

To be assertive people we need to maintain self-care strategies and routines in general. It is difficult to defend our opinions and interests if we abandon ourselves in other aspects of life.

8. Know when to seek help

In some cases where there are many emotions at play and the situation overwhelms us due to its complexity, to develop the necessary degree of assertiveness it may be necessary to resort to psychotherapy.

And it is that part of the ability to show ourselves assertive goes through assume that this is an aptitude that occurs at various levels: it is not a question of having or not having assertiveness. For this reason, in some very important cases for us, such as normalizing a family relationship or breaking up a relationship with a partner or friendship that has become toxic, it may be best to have professional support to get out of the loop of self-deception and fear of giving step.

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On Cepsim Psychological Center We work serving adults, adolescents, families and couples, and we offer face-to-face sessions in our consultations located in Madrid and also through online therapy.