Are you being assertive enough?

I've always considered myself a passive person, one who tends to prefer to take what has been offered to me rather than express my true feelings or exert my personal rights, choosing to step down during stressful situations in order to avoid confrontations. However, I've realized that this behavior does not serve me well, as most of the time I will end up in a lose-lose situation. What drawbacks does being less assertive bring us then?

1) Decreased effectiveness
Let's say you are in a brainstorming session and everyone is throwing out ideas for a new project. You have an excellent idea but since you are facing more assertive colleagues, you keep the idea to yourself and at the end of the session, another less worthy idea compared to yours gets selected because you did voice out. The project suffers and no credit goes to you.

2) Less self confidence
You feel awkward and anxious when speaking to people because you feel that your opinion doesn't make a difference whether you say it or not hence you have less confidence about yourself

3) Low self esteem and less respect from others
When you are afraid to challenge the opinions of others or do not know how to say "No" when you are in an unfavorable situation, you tend to think lowly of yourself and other people will think you are a push over.

4) Miss out on the things you want
Worst of all, you will never be able to get the things that you hope for. It could be the salary increment, new job, the anticipated promotion, the favor from a friend etc.

In order to change from being passive to being assertive, we need to know that being assertive does not equate to being aggressive or rude. Assertiveness means allowing our true voice to be heard, be it expressing our personal opinions, feelings, thoughts, wants, needs, or requests. It can be done in a tactful manner without appearing rude or unreasonable which this post "Six Steps to Become Assertive (and Nice)" over at the Positivity Blog summarizes nicely. In my personal opinion, being successful in getting what you want is the most compelling reason that we should all be more assertive. Is there any more reasons you can add?

Photo courtesy of eronoel

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