Are You Assertive?

If you are going to effectively learn how to govern yourself, you have to be assertive. Teaching Self Government is essentially teaching how to act assertively as oppose to agressively or passively.

Are you assertive?

Take this test.

You are in line at a grocery store and someone steps in front of you in line.

Do you think bad thoughts about the person but choose not to say anything because it would feel uncomfortable?

Do you say, “Excuse me sir, but I am in line. The back of the line is over there. Could you move to the back of the line please?”

Do you say, “Hey buddy, I was here first. Who do you think you are to just butt in front of me and everybody else? Get to the back of the line!”

If you are person number one then you are passive; person number two is assertive, and person number three is aggresive.

I’m sure you could think through lots of other experiences on your own. It’s not a bad idea. The rule of thumb is this. An assertive person calmly, speaks to others about problems to get the problems resolved. An assertive person doesn’t ‘beat around the bush’ about issues, but doesn’t get excited or angry about them either.

Assertive people have peace. They know how to stay calm and promote neccessary change at the same time. All great communicators are assertive.

WARNING: Assertive people don’t neccessarily always make everyone happy. Sometimes people decide they are mad at the actions of the assertive person even though the assertive person wasn’t behaving aggressively. Then the assertive person must control the situation by maintaining her assertive attitude.

Let’s all be more assertive as parents, so that we can model assertiveness for our children. It is also a great idea to aquaint our children with these words when they reach an age where they can understand the difference.

Keep moving forward,

Nicholeen Peck