Say What You Mean, Mean What You Say! A Therapist Guide to Assertive Communication

 Welcome back to A Slice of Life. This is the Anxiety Master podcast here to help you live a calm, strong, and confident life. I'm Dominic Decker, a registered therapist and the creator of Anxiety Master.  Today, I want to share various strategies for becoming more assertive in your daily life. 

Assertiveness can be confusing because it requires balancing clear, direct communication of one's needs and boundaries with respect and empathy for others. People often confuse assertiveness with aggression. This is infringing on others rights, or mistake it for passivity. This is failing to stand up for one's rights. 

Finding the middle ground where you respect yourself and others can be challenging without proper understanding and practice. So we'll discuss different communication styles, why assertiveness can be difficult, and how to gradually build and apply an assertive attitude to daily conversations at work and in personal relationships.

By the end of the episode, you'll have practical tools to express your needs and boundaries clearly and respectfully, fostering deeper connections and a more empowered sense of self.  If you're listening to the podcast, you can access the complete article at anxietymaster. org. There's the link in the show notes.

Okay, let's get started.  Managing relationships with other people is complex. When inevitable frictions arise, poor communication may compound the problem and generate more stress.  You want the other person to see and understand you. Yet in heated moments, what you see as assertive may easily be misread as aggressive. 

Misunderstandings lead to frustration, and then annoyance likes the fuse for overheated responses.  As a result, you risk saying the wrong thing or withdrawing and not saying anything at all.  Either way, the possibility of taking or giving offense is a dissatisfying state of affairs.  Equally, you may shy away from expressing your feelings in heated situations.

Instead, you downplay the value of your thoughts and needs to avoid discomfort or protracted conflict. Yet this withdrawal feels like surrender, breeding frustration and self disappointment because it isn't who you want to be. So let's move beyond this.  So this article, this podcast, is going to outline how to communicate your needs, concerns, and frustrations.

It will show you how to express your position with a level head, an even temper, and a clarity of purpose. From minor daily interactions to work negotiations, let's upgrade your assertive communication skills.  So how do you communicate, and why? Assertiveness is a tangible skill you can develop, yet many of us struggle to put it into practice. 

This doesn't reflect a personal failing. Instead, the challenge of developing your own assertiveness points to the power of past experiences and social influences. Assertiveness Understanding the causes of the habits we want to change can lead to more meaningful results.  Well, first, it helps to decipher the emotional roots of your current communication that you may feel is timid, incomplete, or less than. 

And let's talk a little bit about childhood experience because, generally, communication patterns stem from, and are determined by, early life experiences.  For instance, consider a child on the receiving end of unregulated adult behavior.  If a parent is given to rash, unpredictable reactions, or Tends unfairly to blame their offspring for any difficulty, then such conduct will leave a child confused and uncertain.

The child focuses their efforts on avoiding upset to preempt blame or criticism. This strategy results in passive and obedient behaviour to ward off danger.  Yet these childhood safety maintenance habits often develop into over compliance in adult interactions.  An early experience of emotionally erratic communication with significant adults often causes low self esteem. 

A child who is unclear of their rights may become an adult hesitant to express their needs.  In the face of conflict, a submissive person may feel emotionally flooded or overwhelmed, and this results in their retreat to avoid upset or discomfort.  Thus, the presenting issue remains unresolved, perhaps to the extent that a tendency to sidestep confrontation until it becomes unavoidable mutates into aggressive overcompensation. 

Here, the built up pressure may explode with an angry, inappropriate, or damaging outburst. The aftermath of conflict leads to confusion and regret, especially for the aggressor, and this ensuing upset carries echoes of distress, often from the parent child relationship. Hence, a connection between trying to assert oneself with guilt and shameful consequences becomes further embedded. 

It's also important to talk about social expectations because social and cultural norms can discourage open and direct communication. This is especially true in environments that value conformity over individual expression.  For example, work environments that promote compliance may reinforce a passive or passive aggressive style. 

Here, asserting oneself is a threat to the hierarchy, and assertiveness may entail the risk of firing, expulsion, or rejection. Sometimes staying quiet means keeping safe. And that said, it may be time to move on anyway, if that's the only option in your place of employment. So, it helps to analyse how you generally communicate, and I want us here to cover the four types of communication, and these are aggressive, passive, passive aggressive, and assertive communication. 

So the aggressive style. When in aggressive communication you might state your opinions, feelings and needs. The tone is often blunt, and comes at the expense of others.  You come across as rude or demanding, perhaps even offensive. Aggressive communication provokes adverse reactions that lead to stress for everyone.

Thus, bar dangerous situations, it's rarely the appropriate manner to use.  Then we have the passive style. Here, you avoid expressing your opinions, feelings and needs. You may be uncomfortable speaking your mind. This is especially true when dealing with supervisors or people you deem important or superior.

When passive, you don't take part in decisions that affect you. Furthermore, you don't take a stand on issues that are important to you. This results in, for instance, leaving meetings feeling under acknowledged or invisible. Passive communication incurs the cost of not being seen or heard,  and such a loss of agency and control to direct events generates frustration and stress. 

Next we have the passive aggressive style. This form of communication manifests often as indirect aggression. So for instance, you agree to something you don't want to, but with an annoyed tone. Or you use sarcasm to express irritation to avoid clear communication. Passive aggressive communication might get your wants recognized, yet this approach risks coming across as insincere, and disingenuous behavior irritates others, or comes across as manipulative. 

And then finally, there's assertive communication.  Assertive communication involves sincere statements about your opinions, feelings and needs. So you convey your position in a respectful, discreet and thoughtful way. And, you're understood and well received.  So how do you communicate? Well, you might consider these questions.

Firstly, what communication style do you usually use? We all have our tendencies. So where do you tend to fall with aggressive, passive, passive aggressive, or assertive communication?  Then think, how does that tend to make you feel, that style that you fall back upon? And do you get the outcomes you desire?

And if you don't find yourself being as assertive as you would like to be, what would be the benefits of a more assertive style of communication? Now, we each use these different styles of communication for various situations. The form we adopt varies depending upon who we're talking to. Yet, in most situations, a clear and transparent assertive style is generally the healthiest approach. 

Balanced candor helps you stand up for yourself without offending others. Level headed expression that also enables you to feel more in control of a situation. So you know where you stand, and others know where they stand too. The outcome is a well regulated relationship with yourself and those around you. 

There are also other benefits of assertive communication. For instance, to be more comfortable with supervisors at work. To find that your views are more respected, be more effective in having your needs met, feel more confident about asking others for help, feeling less angry towards yourself, and to find that you're more comfortable with saying no. 

So here it's useful to think about assertiveness and the role of our expectations and how that drives our style of communication, because often without realizing it, you might hold unrealistic beliefs about being assertive. And this confusion deters you from becoming more clear in your communication.

So it's helpful to remember that you don't always have to agree with your friends to be a good friend. In fact, people usually prefer candor.  You don't have an obligation to agree with or say yes to people. You don't have to offer reasons or excuses for saying no.  Your needs are as important as other people's needs.

Saying no to something means saying yes to something else. And so to be more assertive, you can focus on what you say and how you say it. So for setting yourself up for success, well, it's not uncommon to assume that you're either assertive or you're not. Yet this assumption makes the gap from being passive to becoming assertive too large for most people to bridge. 

But assertiveness isn't a switch we turn on and off. Instead, it's a skill that's developed and honed over time.  And with practice, it will become second nature.  Like all good habits that we practice over and over. Your aim is to build assertiveness over time  and graded exposure is one of my favorite therapeutic tools for developing assertiveness.

Now graded exposure is an active coping strategy to help overcome unhelpful behaviors. For instance, the perfectionism and procrastination. In our case today, we're using it to develop assertiveness. The strategy involves a couple of steps. First, you set a goal. Next, you plan steps or behavioral experiments to reach that goal.

And before you undertake a step, you note what you think will happen. For instance, if I ask for a discount in a shop, the salesperson will think I'm stupid and not want to deal with me. Next, you test the assumption by carrying out the step. And in most cases, I'd say roughly 90%, what you think would happen and what actually happens are different.

Or by and large, the outcome will be much better than you anticipated.  Graded exposure provides a range of benefits. You practice incremental skills to build the desired assertive behavior.  You learn that your worries are usually inaccurate and unrealistic, and each step increases the challenge and ups the reward.

So by developing your assertiveness you become more competent and less stressed, thus you have more time and mental focus to invest in relationships, opportunities and enjoyable activities. However, practicing graded exposure tasks does involve some anxiety, but you will find that this anxiety settles with time and becomes less intense with repetition. 

So to chart and record your progress, I recommend creating an exposure step ladder, and there's a free template download available on the article at anxietymaster. org. So go across there and have a look to download your copy.  And just looking across the assertiveness exposure ladder here that we have on the website, you can see that there are three steps that have been followed.

The first thing I've done is I've created a goal. Which in my instance might be to be clear, measured and firm in how I communicate my wants and needs to other people.  And then I put these on a spectrum of difficulty from very low up to very high, with low, medium and high in between.  So I've started by clarifying the goal.

The next thing to do is then rank the list of activities and situations associated with the goal. And as I say, do come and check this on the website because it makes it much clearer if you can see it in front of you.  So looking at the example exposure form on the Anxiety Master website, well, I've listed three activities that for me would form the easiest activities, the one with the less amount of stress resistance.

And these are simply to politely ask a favor from a friend, To ask a store attendant to show me where an item is in the store. And maybe to ask someone unfamiliar for the time, or ask them for directions.  And then once I have practiced these activities, and realized that the world doesn't cave in, upon giving them a shot, I simply then move up to the next rung on the ladder. 

And over time, with consistent efforts, the changes really can be most reassuring. So I thoroughly recommend you come and give this a go. And as I said, there's a free exposure ladder available at the end of the article on the website.  Okay, so we've discussed graded exposure, and if this is our strategy for cultivating assertiveness, let's now explore a practical tool to implement this approach.

And we can use an assertiveness ladder to get started.  Now using an assertiveness ladder, you can plan and practice being more assertive and you can use the ladder at home or at work and use the letters of the word ladder to recall the steps. So we have L, which is to look at your rights, what you want and what you need.

So you can define what you want and keep it in mind during a conversation. The next step is to arrange a time and place to discuss the situation. Now you can skip this step if the situation isn't planned, such as receiving the wrong food at a restaurant and something needs to be said.  So we've looked at our rights, we've arranged a time and a place to discuss the situation with someone.

The next thing we want to do is define the problem for the other person. Now it's important here not to assume that the other person already knows about the problem.  Then once we've defined the problem, we can describe our feelings using the I statements. https: TheBusinessProfessor. com So a nice statement tells how you feel without blaming someone else.

For example, try saying, I'm feeling frustrated instead of you frustrate me. And this is a really important step in terms of learning to become assertive because if we always maintain the position of talking about our own perspective, we know that we can always be in the right. Because, like anyone else, we're perfectly entitled to express our feelings, our wants, and our needs. 

The next step then is to express the want or the need. And how do we do this? Well, we want to be specific, brief, and firm.  For example, instead of asking your partner to be more considerate, which is a very general request, you may ask him or her to call if they're 15 minutes late.  One of the benefits of this as well, of course, is that it creates a success criteria for the other person.

It's like we can help them shine and we can be specific in our requests towards them.  And then the last step of the ladder is to reinforce the idea of getting what you want. And you can show the other person how your request might benefit both of you.  So, a quick recap on this ladder. L. Look at your rights.

A. Arrange a time and place to discuss the situation.  D, define the problem, the other person.  D, describe your feelings using I statements.  E, express what you want or need. And R, to reinforce the idea of getting what you want.  Now, of course, verbal communication is only one piece of the pie. Some formulas estimate the interpretation of a spoken message is 7 percent verbal, 38 percent vocal, and 55 percent visual.

So 93 percent of communication is verbal. Well, quite possibly non verbal.  Now when we're talking about assertive body language, what we're talking about is how you sit, stand, move. How you use your eyes and hands when speaking. Sometimes you think you're being assertive, but your body presents a conflicting message. 

That message can get in the way of what you're trying to say. And using the correct body language helps you communicate with greater confidence. So keep these pointers in mind.  If you're talking to someone, make eye contact with the person and try to keep your facial expressions open and sincere.  Sit or stand up tall with a straight back.

Speak with a clear and firm tone.  Use your hands and facial expressions to highlight your most important points.  Try not to sound like you're asking a question when you're not. You'll recognise this when your intonation rises at the end of sentences.  And don't use an apologetic tone of voice.  And practicing your body language in front of a mirror can be really helpful here.

I don't mind admitting that it's something that I've done frequently in the past. As silly as it sounds, it really can help.  It's normal to feel anxious when you start practicing assertive communication. This is why it can help to begin with an easy task first, for example, practicing with a close friend.

And here's a simple three step plan to practice and rehearse.  So assertive complaining, getting what you want without hurting someone's feelings.  So when you complain, we want to feel heard, understood, and that the matter can be put right. However, you might avoid expressing your thoughts for fear of hurting the other person.

A good complaint should empower the other person to repair the situation. So from this perspective, your complaint attempts to restore mutual trust and understanding. So let this be your guiding light. So how do we do this? Well, step one, start with the I and express the feeling. I'm upset, worried, angry.

Step two, describe the situation and stick to the facts. For example, I'm upset that I get interrupted when I talk. I'm disappointed that you didn't come home like you said.  I'm annoyed I have to keep repeating myself.  Describe here the situation and how you feel yourself, not the other person.  Then the third step is to express what's needed, and this is about how can the other person make it better.

You can make this clear and practical.  I need you to. So your request here should position the other person to repair and put things right.  Examples, putting these three steps together. I'm upset that I get interrupted when I talk. I need you to let me finish speaking.  I'm disappointed that you didn't come home like you said.

I need you to stick to our agreement.  I'm annoyed that I have to keep repeating myself. I need you to listen to me carefully.  Everything we've covered so far will offer you a clear passage through many situations, yet there are occasions when you need to go that step further to maintain calm and keep control.

So here, you might want to reach into your bag for advanced assertiveness techniques. I'm talking about persistent time grabbers and obnoxious big heads. Then there are the bolshie types and unaware lane shifters with no sense of boundaries. So what kinds of techniques can we use to manage these situations and to manage these sorts of people?

Well, we're going to talk about the advanced assertiveness skills, managing bothersome people like a boss. And some occasions make it particularly hard to be assertive. For instance, the other person is being irrational or aggressive. In these situations, you may need to improve your skills further.  Or fear not, familiarize yourself with the following techniques to bring tricky situations back under control.

Here's the first, and possibly one of the most effective, which is to be a broken record. Now this is useful for when someone persists in asking something inappropriate of you.  So what do you do? Well, simply repeat yourself over and over until the other person accepts your answer.  Don't give explanations or excuses.

Instead, offer the same response with the same measured tone. Three times will usually do it, but don't be perturbed if it takes more. Just keep going. The next advanced assertiveness skill is fogging. The term fogging derives from the metaphor of a wall of fog absorbing arguments without reciprocating them.

Fogging is an effective strategy when faced with manipulative or aggressive behaviour.  And here, rather than counter arguing, the technique delivers short and calm responses. And these responses are conciliatory, but not defensive. So your aim is to circumvent conceding to unreasonable demands.  Fogging involves acknowledging valid points in the other person's statements, even if critical. 

If you refrain from adopting a defensive decision, you've sidestepped the expected response.  As a result, the aggressor often discontinues an aggressive approach. And this shift can pave the way for more rational discussion once tensions have subsided. Here's an example situation. Well, what time do you call this?

You're nearly half an hour late. I'm fed up with you letting me down all the time.

Fogging response:

You're right. I am later than planned. And I understand it's frustrating for you.  

Annoyed? Of course I'm annoyed. And I've been waiting for ages. You really should try to think about other people a bit more! 

So here's the fogging response. I agree, waiting for someone can be irritating, especially for nearly 30 minutes.  Well, why were you late?

And then you can move the conversation along. But you can see here that you're acknowledging the other person's perspective without being drawn into a hot argument.

It's a very effective way of maintaining your position in a conversation with someone. Our next advanced assertiveness skill is Positive Inquiry. Now this involves embracing praise and compliments.  And people with lower self esteem often find it challenging to accept positive remarks. They might feel unworthy or doubt the sincerity of the compliment.

Yet a gracious response to genuine praise is to accept a gift from someone.  Positive Inquiry involves delving into the praise and concurring with it. So an example situation, well the giver may say, You made an excellent meal tonight, it was delicious.  And the receiver may respond, Thank you, I'm glad you enjoyed it.

Could you tell me what it was that stood out for you?  Contrast this response with a passive dismissal such as, Oh, it was nothing, or it was only a basic recipe. Now these responses serve to undervalue the effort and the compliment.  Now just as we have positive inquiry, we also have negative inquiry. And this is a constructive method for addressing criticism or negative comments.

Rather than a defensive or hostile response, negative inquiry aims to understand criticism. So for example, the sender may say, That meal was inedible. I can't remember the last time I ate something so awful.  As the advanced receiver, you would say, I see it wasn't to your liking. Could you specify precisely what you don't like?

This approach contrasts with aggressive retorts like, How dare you criticise my cooking after all the effort I've put in? Or, Fine, I won't bother cooking for you again. And these responses only escalate the situation.  Remember that becoming assertive requires practice. Like any skill, you'll get better at it with repetition. 

There'll be occasions when it doesn't work, and other times when you'll be pleased with its effectiveness and success.  So don't expect to become assertive overnight. Instead, stay committed through regular practice. You'll see and experience the benefits, for sure.  Well, here's a final thought for today.

Learning to express your thoughts, wants, and needs is the greatest of gifts. Whatever your current station in life, it's never too late to start practicing the skills in this article. As soon as you can begin, you step into the light from unseen to seen. Becoming assertive is an act of self-compassion.

In standing up for your position, you extend the care that you offer others to yourself.  And what's more, you'll attract supportive people and repel negative ones, so you've got everything to gain, so get cracking. Just one step at a time. And remember,  be who you are, and say what you mean.  Because those who mind don't matter, and those who matter don't mind. 

Thanks for listening, my name's Dominic Decker, take care, and I'll be back soon.