Being an assertive person at work (and in your private life) is something that many people have difficulty with especially when it comes to learning how to say “no.”
We already covered my personal experience with assertiveness training. In my case I was looking to learn some assertiveness techniques to help me at work and in my life in general.
What if you’re the type of person who can’t say no at work? You can’t tell your boss that you can’t work late, you can’t say no when they want to dump more work on your desk, you can’t even say no when your friends want you to go out and you don’t want to go.
Learning how to say no when appropriate is something that will most likely be a skill that you need to use on a regular basis at work and in life.
Becoming a yes man or woman often ends up making things worse for you because not only do certain people realize they can get you to do what they want but you might end up becoming held in lower esteem by your peers who think of you as someone who can’t stand up and say no and is someone who can’t be relied upon to ever give an honest opinion because you’re too busy agreeing with them.
One way that people often deal with having a hard time saying no is to instead say yes when confronted by someone. Then they hope that the issue or problem will either go away or that the person asking for something will forget. Then as the deadline or due date approaches, they email the person or find some excuse to give them to make the issue go away. So then the person not only get a reputation for being a yes man or woman, but they also get the reputation as someone who is unreliable too. I’ve worked with people like this and I recall going to school with a few people like that too. These people are often very visible during group projects where each person takes a task and it’s obvious at the end who did their part and who didn’t.
Alternatively of course, the other option is that you simply agree to everything asked of you and then you go and do it which just perpetuates the problem because you end up becoming the person that everyone knows can’t say no.
What can you do to become more assertive?
One of the first things you can do to become more assertive is to stop saying yes right away. Instead of saying yes, you say that you want to check your schedule and think about what else you have on the go. I’ve found that people that try to dump stuff on others often do so because they’re looking for a quick fix and want to quickly find someone who is willing to say yes. If you don’t say yes, chances are that they might go away and try to find someone else.
Your attitude has a lot to do with it too. As mentioned above, it often comes down to what other people think of you. If they think you’re a pushover, some people will treat you this way. If they know you’re someone who has a backbone they’re likely to be more cognizant of who they’re dealing with.
Another thing you can do is to assess your current behavior. If you’re the type of person who is always volunteering to do things, pay attention to others close to you and see how they act especially if they’re people who don’t seem to be doing nearly as much as you. We’ve probably all been in those meetings or situations where a volunteer is required and no one is offering to help. After a few seconds of silence, are you the one who always puts their hand up to volunteer every single time? If so, why?
In this instance, it might help to politely remind your peers about what else you have on the go and to un-volunteer yourself. In other words, you remove yourself from consideration by briefly telling everyone that you’re already busy enough as it is and that someone else needs to take the lead in this instance.
In my experience, the first steps to becoming more assertive are to recognize that it’s an area you need to improve upon, become aware of your current habits and traits and to also think about how you project yourself in front of others. I’ve found that the likelihood that others can take advantage of you goes a long way in determining how much trouble you’ll have with assertiveness because the more of a yes-man or woman you are the more you’ll probably find yourself saying yes when you wish you were saying no.
If this doesn’t work, consider taking some training from someone who can teach you, just like I ended up doing.
