What does it mean to be assertive?

Assertiveness is about being, not doing.

A necessary step on the way to being assertive is trying new behaviours and ways of dealing with things. This can feel somewhat uncomfortable, unnatural and new - but it is not being assertive in and of itself.

Being Assertive is what you are when you have achieved a state of 'calm'. From this state you can see more clearly and react more intuitively, while continually learning and changing.

Assertiveness is about feeling good, feeling confident and feeling comfortable in all situations, even new ones. To be assertive is to welcome change and new experiences with a genuine positive expectancy.

To be assertive is to be an optimist. It's to be lucky and to see opportunities instead of difficulties. It is to expect good things to happen without having to work stressfully for hour after hour in preparation. It is to be open to serendipity, the hidden shortcuts in life that exist in unexpected places or situations. It is to be flexible and adaptable in the face of new information without clinging to the 'as is' situation.

To be assertive is to feel happy and freed from endless hours of worry. It is to experience a feeling of 'everything is going to be all right' even in times of hardship or difficulty, even when facing what to others, would be a threatening or dangerous situation.
To be assertive is to move forwards continually, to work on feeling better and better and better…..

How do we become assertive?

We are all assertive in some parts of our lives already.
To develop further our assertiveness, which is, to some degree anyway, extending our comfort zone, we must train our 'intuition' sometimes called our 'second nature'.

We can adopt a two pronged approach:-

Firstly we can develop our attitudes and expectations, we can rehearse new behaviours mentally, using a variety of effective and proven techniques. Until we reach a position where we have lost fear and gained confidence. The confidence is necessary in order to try out a new behaviour or way of handling things.

Secondly we can continually experiment with new behaviours out in the world. In situations where our emotional response has let us know that something did not feel quite right, we can review. We can identify what we could have done differently and what we plan what to do next time. We might also take remedial action if it's necessary, to make up for our error. We can be honest with ourselves and we can learn to trust our second nature. The more we do this the closer we get to achieving our goal. Peace of mind.

It is that simple.

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