People have different personality types, and some people have a much more difficult time asserting themselves or putting forth their opinions than others. Unfortunately, if you are one of those people who has a hard time asserting yourself, your career, personal life and relationships may suffer for it. If you find yourself in this situation, assertiveness training may be the answer.
What is Assertiveness Training?
Assertiveness training is a program in which you learn skills and techniques to express yourself, to put forth your opinion or to ask for what you need. Being assertive is not about being pushy or aggressive or rude. It is about knowing how to nicely and firmly make your needs and opinions known in a way that others will listen to and respect.
A good assertiveness training program recognizes this and teaches you both why you fear being assertive and how you can overcome that fear to take greater control of your life.
When you become more assertive through the help of assertiveness training, you can learn to speak up when others try to take advantage of you or treat you poorly. You can learn to ask for what you need in your personal relationships, or make yourself a bigger player at work by letting your bosses and co-workers know of your role and your accomplishments. You become a stronger person and the best version of yourself.
What Will You Learn in Assertiveness Training?
When you participate in an assertiveness training program, the first thing you may need to do is to take a good look at yourself in order to increase your self-awareness. You will learn to focus on the parts of yourself that you have not been fully expressing or the qualities and strength within you that have not come out. You will confront your fears and you will begin to learn how to manage, cope and overcome them in order to be more assertive.
You will also be given tools to understand what happened in past situations that have caused you to feel frustration or caused you to feel as if you weren't being heard. When your opinions are ignored or not taken into account, it can reinforce your feelings that you shouldn't speak up or that your opinion is not worth hearing. Assertiveness training will help you recognize what happened in your past communications and why you weren't able to make your voice or wishes come across. By looking back at the past and exploring why and how you had problems asserting yourself, you can make different choices in the future to help you achieve a different result.
Finally, of course, you will be given the tools and the support you need to assert yourself more and to be more assertive going forward. You will be armed with the courage to make your opinion known and to stand behind that opinion in order to get what you need. You will also be given the tools and confidence to assert yourself in a nice way, so you can be assertive without alienating others.
Assertiveness training can literally change your life if you let it- get started today on carving out a new path for your future.
