Status Updates From Your Perfect Right: Asserti...

No individual can exist alone. None of us has the necessary knowledge, skills, or personal resources required to function with total independence in the world. We are interdependent, and our assertiveness must take into account and respect our neighbors’ needs as well as our own.

try to be yourself, be assertive, and take others’ needs, rights, and respect into account.

Although we suggest that you rehearse while you are developing your style and skills in assertiveness, we consider it very important that you develop a personal style — integrating assertiveness with your own unique way of dealing with people.

Remember to be assertive in your persistence; nagging can be aggressive!

recognize individual differences! Everybody has a unique view of the world; that’s part of the joy of the human experience. Don’t try to shape others into your image of them. Don’t assume there is only one way to be assertive in a given circumstance. Let people choose to be nonassertive if they wish.

And we’re in full support of the concept of “random kindness”: anonymous acts of kindness done without possibility of recognition or reward.

Assertiveness is not incompatible with kindness, thoughtfulness, compassion, empathy, or politeness. Someone with a truly assertive lifestyle is very concerned for others and their rights. We like the terms “empathic assertion” and “compassionate assertiveness,” which have been used to describe self-expression directed at the needs of another person. And we’re in full support of the concept of “random kindness”: ...

■ Be kind. “Kindness” is a word that doesn’t get a lot of press, but it has been our intent since the beginning of our work with assertiveness to help humans treat one another with respect, thoughtfulness, and, yes, kindness. The idea of assertiveness for those who had been “pushed around” earlier was to help them gain the respect that others weren’t offering.

■ Don’t get into a rut. You need not “assert yourself” all the time. How boring — and boorish — to go about always making yourself heard, always speaking out. Make assertiveness one tool in your repertoire of behaviors, one way to act that you can use when it is important and needed. Nothing is perfectly effective all the time; it is possible to have too much of a good thing!

■ Don’t manipulate. Assertiveness goes a long way when used appropriately. But it ought not to be used as a tool for manipulation, as a means to “get your way” at the expense of others (aggression), or as a constant style of behavior.

■ Remember, you do have some options for action. Any of them can cause you more trouble with a difficult person if you become a manipulator, so apply them sensitively — but firmly — and with the main goal of getting on with your life.