Applicable to romantic relationships, but also to work relationships, relationships with friends, family, etc. Exact steps on how to be assertive without to be aggressive.
Non-assertive people often believe that there are only two types of behavior: aggressive and completely non-aggressive. However, between these extremes, there is a wide range of ways to act assertively while still ensuring that no one feels offended or hurt.
Non-assertive individuals may not recognize these middle-ground approaches and might perceive any behavior outside their own (modesty and unobtrusiveness) as aggressive.
To address this, it’s important to understand why they view self-advocacy as aggression, how they developed this perspective, and how they can learn to behave in a way that allows them to advocate for themselves without conflict.
“Being assertive does not mean attacking or ignoring others’ feelings. It means that you are willing to stand up for yourself fairly and respectfully without being aggressive or disrespectful toward others.” Jim Rohn
How a Lack of Assertiveness Arises
It is possible that an atmosphere was cultivated in your house in which, for several reasons, you do not need or must not ask for anything for yourself.
- Maybe you were yelled at when you asked for something
- Maybe there was no one to fulfill your wishes,
- It is possible that you grew up in a family where it was considered not polite to ask for something for yourself, or even such behavior was frowned upon.
- Or it can always be identification with one of the parents, who behaves similarly,
- It can be for many other reasons, such as: you think it should be like that, hidden fears, people pleasing, etc.
If you grew up or have formed in such circumstances, you can easily become someone who never stands up for themselves or asks for anything for themselves.
And because of that, every change in that dynamic causes resistance in you.
Resistance is manifested through emotions such as fear, discomfort, and anger when you need to ask for something for yourselves. Emotions are then followed by mechanisms: rationalization of why you don’t need it, suppression, denying that you need it, etc.
Although you and I both love to think that you are actually a good person because you are not asking for anything for yourself, the truth is that maybe you are actually afraid to ask for anything for yourself.
This is just for information and for you to experience that A-ha moment. It is much more important to know:
How It Looks To Other People When You Are Not Assertive and Don’t Ask For Anything For Yourself
People actually don’t like you when you don’t ask for anything for yourself
To understand this, you must first understand human nature. And human nature arose as a result of external circumstances, so please let me explain it briefly.
We know about people that they have been hungry and threatened since the beginning of mankind. Our natural adaptation put two and two together and concluded that the most important thing is to have a lot of resources at our disposal in order to survive. The more we had, the better our chances of survival.
Logically, in order to achieve a lot, it was necessary to fight for ourselves. So it can be said that it is only natural for humans to fight for themselves and to take care of themselves as much as they can, because that triggers our ancient trigger: survival.
That’s why, when someone doesn’t claim for themselves even what belongs to them, the people around them don’t perceive it as nice but as unnatural. And we have resistance to unnatural things.
And unfortunately, not only that.
When someone isn’t assertive and doesn’t ask for themself, we have the background impression that this person is not honest or wants to destroy themselves. From that comes a new natural triggers:
- OK. If you are not honest, I am in danger next to you.
- If you want to destroy yourself, it means that something is wrong with you and that I should either get away from you or take all your resources. When you don’t need them anyway.
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And the third thing people see in you when you don’t fight for yourself is weakness. So, because you don’t fight (ask) for yourself, you don’t become attractive, on the contrary. You become an unattractive partner because weak people are very demanding people. We have to take care of them; we have to give them our resources and protect them, etc. They will be more of a burden than a pleasure.
So, when you don’t fight for yourself, you are not wonderful to people.
- You are unnatural to people
- You make them feel that they should avoid you or take advantage of you, and
- You create the feeling that they will have problems with you.
So, being assertive is a matter of natural behavior. Not being assertive triggers negative alarms in people.
đź“Ś Only people who are not good for us will stay and agree to our character like this. Because it is easy to manipulate non-assertive people, use them or at least feel better than them.
You Will Find Compatible People For You
Whether you are assertive or not
If you are someone who doesn’t ask for anything, you probably have found or are finding partners who are satisfied with that kind of relationship.
We fit in logically with certain partners. If we do not ask for anything for ourselves, we will find a partner whose nature is to give us nothing.
We have that infallible sensor in us that looks for people who are compatible with us and people who remind us of figures from our childhood (and let’s not forget: you were created like that precisely because of such figures).
So you will find someone with whom you can continue that dynamic of not asking (from your side) and not giving (from their side).
đź“Ť Maybe in our imagination there are people who will see us clearly, and despite the fact that we don’t ask for anything for ourselves, they will recognize our needs and give us the things we need. But things don’t work that way.
If we don’t ask for anything for ourselves, even if they want to give us something, they will stop. Because it’s not in human nature to waste their resources on someone who doesn’t even expect it from them.
Other people (those who want to give us things that belong to us) will find our behavior strange and will leave us, as I said. Therefore, only people will remain who are comfortable with you being so non-assertive.
They Don’t Want to Give You Anything, Either
People who are comfortable with this dynamic (that you don’t ask for anything for yourself) also have their own reasons for being like that. The reasons range from practiced patterns, through opportunism, to narcissistic personalities.
Therefore, the next factor is that people who do not ask for anything for themselves usually have partners who aggressively defend their right not to give the other person anything.
What does it look like when they don’t want to give you anything: They grumble, shout, ignore your needs, forget (passive aggression), threaten, intimidate if necessary, etc. This, of course, creates a new complicating factor in asking for something for yourself.
Of course, some additional forces are at work in us when we engage in this kind of dynamic in which we do not ask for anything, but for now we have these instances:
- We are afraid to ask for anything or expect to get nothing
- People find us strange because of this and they feel the need to use us or reject us
- We find such people, to whom such dynamics are acceptable.
- And they very aggressively (not necessarily open aggression, maybe also passive aggression) defend their positions, refusing to give us anything.
Here’s Why People Like Assertive People
Because they are natural, as I said. And because they seem strong.
People who ask for something for themselves, act as valuable to themselves. They want to get more for their self-preservation, to progress, to protect themselves, and to do better. The bottom line is that they are fighting for themselves.
Don’t forget: we only fight for what is valuable to us.
So, if we are assertive and ask for ourselves, we are actually sending a message that we are valuable.
And if we send such a message to people, they will believe us.
They don’t think too much about it: Why is this person self-important? They just pick up the signal that we are valuable and act accordingly.
And not only that. When we act like we are valuable, others think that we have something valuable and they will get that from us. Protection, resources, etc. Or that they will learn from us how to respect themselves. That our value will spill over to them, that they will get good advice, etc.
People really like to spend time with people who respect themselves. Because they seem like someone they can ultimately benefit from.
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How to Become Assertive?
- Understand this dynamic and that your fear probably comes from childhood.
- There are thoughts that follow your decision to not stand up for yourself. These thoughts serve to solidify the decision and make it last. (I don’t need it; He probably doesn’t have time for me; She can’t give it to me, etc.)
- Understand that you have in front of you a person who participates in that dynamic.
- When you understand all this, try to change it. Try asking for something for yourself.
Now, you are obviously prevented by the fear of their reaction, so let’s explain this a little better.
People are divided into three varieties:
- People who will absolutely refuse to give you what you ask for yourself
- People who won’t be thrilled but will still agree after a while
- People who will immediately agree to give you what you ask for.
The first variant of people are people who are absolutely not interested in your wishes and do only what they want. The other two variants are okay.
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What Are You Afraid Of?
- You are afraid of words. And words are actually sounds.
- You are afraid of change. In your case, change is necessary.
- You are afraid of being left behind. If they leave you, they belong to that group of people who only respect themselves. And you really don’t want such people in your life.
- You are afraid of their reaction. If their reaction is physical aggression, you should not be in that relationship. If their reaction is not dangerous but just unpleasant, try to stand it.
So, for now, we have two things:
- Stop being afraid to ask for yourself. When you read what you fear, it may help you see how irrational it is.
- Create at least a small capacity to hear rejection or even harsher things.
Now It Remains For Us To Ask
There is, of course, a better and a worse way to ask for ourselves, but in this text, we will not deal with bad ideas, only good ones. And a good way to fight for ourselves and ask them to give us something we want is:
- Non-aggressive
- Clear and
- Concrete
1. Non-aggressiveness
It is important to mention this because people who never ask for anything for themselves often cannot articulate the other part of themselves and do not know how to be assertive. They think that it must be the opposite of being scared—aggressive. To have only black or white available.
Realistically, you don’t have to be bold to be assertive or get what you want. That other, unknown part of you can be calm and composed, expressing things politely and gently.
- Here, I suggest an exercise to think about this question: In what way does asking for yourself harm other people? You will see how unusual and unfounded this assumption is in anything real. Maybe you have never even thought about it.
- Also, express yourself through wishes. This will be easier for you, because it is not aggressive and completely against your nature. So: I wish…
2. The second condition is to be clear that you want and need something.
For people who hide their needs, this takes work.
Hiding is their spontaneous, automatic mechanism. It must be unlearned, and a new mechanism must be learned. Nothing we learn from the beginning is easy, but you have to start somewhere.
- It may be easier for you if you know that you are not hurting anyone by expressing your wish. Maybe they won’t want to make it happen for you, but your desire can’t hurt them. Feel free to express your wishes.
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3. And the third condition is to be specific about what you need.
In plain terms, don’t expect other people to read your mind or guess. For example, a sentence like “I want more love” won’t do the job. But a specific sentence like “I want you to hug me more” is a concrete request, and it will change things.
- The more specific you are, the easier it will be for the person in front of you to understand the message. In the same way, be specific about everything you want.
The Hardest Part Remains: What Kind of Reaction You’ll Get
Well, I’ll tell you right away: probably very dissatisfied. They may ignore your needs or have some other negative reaction. Considering that you are now changing the rules you may have formed with that person, they will not be happy that you are asking for something for yourself now.
And watch this: That person doesn’t even have to be angry.
People are creatures of habit. They will forever want to maintain their habits because they fear that if you change, your relationship with them will change too, (which is always a possibility). And because of that, they may react vehemently and resist these changes, making it look like anger.
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And here, we should add the next thing, which is persistence
Precisely because of those resistances that I mentioned, even after you seek something for yourself, they will reappear and force you to give up your plan.
Resistance is there to protect the old patterns because the new ones seem too unfamiliar and scary. Many questions and doubts arise there.
But also in this second round (the first was that you finally dared to ask for yourself), try to break your resistance for new dynamics and remain persistent in your demands.
And if you remain persistent in your demands, and the person from whom you ask something belongs to the second and third group of people (cooperative), sooner or later your plan will work.
But if the person belongs to the first group of people (people who don’t want to give you anything), you don’t need such people in your life.
So, if you become assertive and ask for things for yourself, you win in every sense.
Either people who are good for you will stay, or people who you don’t need anyway will leave because you don’t get what you want from them anyway.
I hope this text is useful for you. Dee
