"WHY - AREN'T - YOU - LISTENING - TO - ME?"

Does that sound like a man expressing himself assertively, using good listening skills and other effective assertiveness techniques, or does it sound like a man that is simply shouting loudly and behaving boorish and being angry and aggressive?

Yes, it's obvious that this is not what assertiveness is. Clearly, being assertive is NOT about shouting, and it's also not about being physically intimidating to someone or about always getting your way.

Actually, assertiveness is about communicating your needs respectfully.

And when I say respectfully I mean respecting both your needs and the needs of the person you're communicating with.

Well, that's what I think assertiveness is all about, anyway, but maybe you disagree.

There once was a man who always said yes when people asked him to do things for them. He said 'yes' when he wanted to help, and he said 'yes' when he didn't.

But the people that asked him for favors didn't know the difference between the two kinds of 'yes' that he gave. So they just carried on asking the man for favors, thinking that he was a very nice man, indeed.

Unfortunately, the man started to resent saying 'yes' all of the time. He got cross at these people who were always asking him to do things. But most of all he got cross at himself for not being able to say 'no'.

So he decided to do the only thing that made sense, to him, and that was to spend less time in the company of these people. And if people still asked him to do things he would just flat out say 'no'.

Yes this made sense to the man, but it made no sense to anybody else.

In fact, these people felt a little hurt, and a little rejected and they had no idea why the man was behaving so oddly. What had they done wrong? Why did this man avoid them so much? And, worst of all, why didn't he want to help them with these important things in their life?

And on and it went.

Resentment in the man created resentment in the people. And soon everybody was cautious, everybody was guarded, and eventually nobody asked *anyone* for help.

Self-righteousness (and hurt) was everywhere.

And all because the man did not know how to say 'yes' when he meant 'yes' and 'no' when he meant 'no'.

So, what is assertiveness then?

I think it's about respecting yourself and respecting the people in your life too, and it's being able to say 'yes' as well as 'no', as appropriate.

And I seriously think that if more people were assertive, the world would be a better (and happier) place.