Assertiveness Training Courses
The goal of our Assertiveness Training
course is to enable participants to learn to express their rights, requests, opinions, and feelings honestly, directly, and appropriately without violating the rights and self-esteem of others.
Each
Assertiveness Training Institute training
course begins with a self-assessment that
enables individuals to understand their personality.
We delve into each person’s strengths,
weaknesses and stress areas to help people understand
what makes them “tick.” We then
begin the process of enabling participants to
understand how to
communicate
more effectively with others. Through various
activities and assertiveness training exercises, participants
then begin to recognize other communication
styles and the best way to communicate to them.
Here is when the process of becoming more assertive
truly takes shape – by understanding the
needs of other communication styles, participants
learn how to express their opinion and stand
up for their interests regardless of who they
are dealing with.
For more information on our
assertiveness training
courses
contact us
here.
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Ever been accused of being aggressive when you
thought you were simply being assertive?
This is actually quite common because usually it takes
so much effort for unassertive people to stand up for
themselves that their behavior can often look more
aggressive than intended.
Here's what happens. Let's say that in your day-to-day
life you don't feel very assertive. People take
advantage of you; you are easily intimidated some of
the time; you give in too easily; you accommodate
other people's wishes often above your own.
A lot of the time you'll rehearse in your head things
you could say to stop these things from happening. The
problem is, you don't. What then happens is that all
those little upsets begin to grow into one big one. It
gets bigger and bigger every time you don't stand up
for yourself and you feel you ought to.
Finally, one day you've had enough! The next time
someone says something to you, expects you to stay
late to finish up a report, drive the kids to school,
or any number of little inconveniences, you're going
to do it, you're going to say something. You plan the
conversation in your head; you know exactly what
you're going to say and even what they are going to
say.
But this takes courage!
So you steel yourself for this encounter. By the time
it comes around you've probably worked yourself into
quite a lather, at least internally. When the moment
comes this is what often happens: you're taken by
surprise even though you were expecting it, and worst
of all, all the words you had rehearsed go completely
out of your head.
But in order to save the day you decide to go for it
anyway. And blast the bad guy away with both barrels.
Suddenly, your usual mild-mannered approach has turned
into a full-scale attack. Not only that, you may be so
horrified by what you have done that you either can't
stop and keep on going, making things even worse, or
you scurry away full of apologies and look for a
corner in which to lick your wounds.
This is why you may seem aggressive when aggression is
the last thing on your mind
And this is why assertiveness can sometimes get a bad
reputation. If other people experience you as very
accommodating and perhaps even a bit of a pushover,
when you push back and it gets out of hand, people
don't usually react very positively.
For assertiveness to work, it should be pretty much
invisible, with not a double-barreled shotgun in
sight.
When you start thinking about becoming more assertive,
you need to start with small, incremental changes
rather than imagining you are going to turn into this
super-confident, quick-thinking and speaking person
overnight.
One problem here is that we see someone else handling
all these things really well, and we think, "I wish I
could be like that." Personalities don't change that
quickly, and besides, you are you with all your own
unique qualities and abilities. What's important is to
find the small things that would help you become more
assertive, instead of trying to do it all in one fell,
and ultimately, aggressive swoop.
Source: Robin Chandler
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Related: Assertiveness Training
For more information on our assertiveness training
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