whether it's preparing yourself to be more assertive in situations that you expect or to be more assertive in situations that are unexpected the mere Act of being more assertive can be extremely challenging you might clam up go silent and not respond at all because your mind goes blank you might ignore people's aggressive or passive aggressive comments because you tell yourself they're not going to say it again or you might walk away from those situations thinking I should have said this I should have said that if I'm right on any of what I just said then you need to continue watching this video becoming more assertive has been a lifelong journey for me if you've watched my previous video that I published a while back on my Channel How I Learned to be more assertive and stopped being a pushover you will already know some of the strategies and techniques that I've used to become more assertive but recently it became very clear to me that there are two distinct situations where being assertive is required situations that are expected and situations that are unexpected and they both need to be dealt with in different ways so that's the main focus of this video how to be assertive in situations that are expected and unexpected so you can achieve your ultimate goal of being more assertive but I want to start by addressing what is assertiveness what does it mean to be assertive because I think a lot of people have a misconception about what being assertive is and this misconception prevents them from being assertive when they need to assertiveness is a mode of communication where you confidently Express what you think and feel in a direct and honest manner it helps you to stand up for yourself if people are aggressive towards you it helps you to protect your boundaries in a positive and a calm way it helps you to command respect from people you interact with and in a professional context especially as a leader being assertive is critical for those of you who come from a more aggressive style of communication when you are assertive it might feel that you're taking taking a step down that you're being too weak or that you're starting to become like a pushover for those of you who are coming from a more passive style of communication when you learned how to become assertive it might feel like you're starting to become really aggressive it's this mismatch when you're starting from a mode of communication that is aggressive or a mode of communication that is more passive it's this mismatch between the two that prevents a lot of people from being assertive so I want want you to go into this video with the knowledge that assertiveness is simply a mode of communication that allows you to express confidently what you think and feel in a direct and an honest way it is not about being aggressive it is not about being a pushover it is a mode of communication that sits in the middle of those two extremes of communication once you have the right definition in mind about what assertiveness is then you need to focus on your fears you need to tackle your fears about being assertive the most common fears are the fear of Confrontation the fear of being impolite the fear of saying the wrong thing when it comes to the fear of Confrontation this is where you fear that if you express what you think and feel in a direct and honest way it will result in people disagreeing criticizing or arguing with you in some way for those of you who come from a more indirect or passive style of communication the fear of Confrontation can be real and intense you might think that you're not able to hold your ground and this fear will prevent you from directly expressing what you think and feel because you don't want to be confronted about it next is the fear of being impolite and you might be able to relate to this one if you grew up in an environment a family environment where talking directly wasn't encouraged where people used a more indirect style of communication to express what they think what they want and what they feel lastly is the fear of saying the wrong thing this often crops up in meetings when you are afraid of losing your credibility your self-doubt kicks in and it stops you from sharing your ideas your thoughts and opinions because you're worried that people will think you're not intelligent this is common if there are people who are more experienced or more senior in the room with you like with any any fear the very first step in overcoming it is identifying it so I want you to write in the comments below which of the three fears do you relate to which of these three fears prevents you from being assertive now we're moving on to preparing for the expected so these are situations in which you expect you will have to be assertive it could be at work at home or with friends it's likely to be a situation that you've faced in the past where you weren't assertive and you walked away thinking I should have been assertive in that moment situations in which you expect you will have to be assertive are really helpful because they allow you to mentally prepare beforehand you can work out what you're going to say and how you're going to say it for example you could have a particular coworker someone you work with who is often aggressive or passive aggressive with you this happens on a regular basis so it's something that you can expect will happen in the next interaction you have with them to avoid you not being assertive when you need to you can mentally prepare for the interaction you're going to have with this person you can write down what you're going to say how you're going to respond you can even rehearse some things that you want to say to them this preparation will help you feel a lot more confident going into that conversation and interaction with that person and it will make you much more likely to be assertive when you need to in order to prepare a effectively for expected situations in which you need to be assertive there are five steps that you need to follow you might want to take out a piece of paper or a tablet or your phone to take notes Here think about who do you need to be assertive with there might be one particular person at work who is constantly giving you a hard time who is constantly belittling you who you need to be assertive with or you want to be assertive with in the future if you let that person's comment slide as you've been doing in the past and it makes them feel that it's okay to talk to you that way so by identifying who this person is that you need to be assertive with it will help you to mentally prepare before you go into any conversation and interaction with them in what situations do you need to be assertive the person that you identified in step one might not be aggressive or passive aggressive with you all of the time in one-on-one conversations you have with them they might be totally fine but when they're in a group of people and you are with them in the group they might start to become more aggressive with you it might be in those situations group situations where they become aggressive and passive aggressive with you so by identifying which situations do you need to be more assertive with them you can go into those situations being a lot more prepared mentally what do you usually say or how do you usually react identifying what you usually say or do when this person is aggressive or passive aggressive with you will help you understand what not to do in the future and what I like to do is to write down word for word what it is I normally say to that person so I know what I shouldn't say next time what should you say or do instead this is where you write down what you would have liked to have said this is where you write down what you should have said in order to be assertive and then say it so let's look at some examples of what you can say when someone interrupts you during meetings you need to claim your talking space you can say hang on Jennifer I wasn't finished explaining my point yet I'll loop back to you when I'm done when someone belittles or talks down to you you can say could you explain what you mean by that belittling often happens in a passive aggressive way or a very indirect way and because it's indirect it can be hard for you to know how to respond but by asking that person what did you mean by that by asking them to elaborate on what they said it brings attention to the words that they used toward you and it often results in them responding with ah I was just joking when someone asks you an inappropriate question like I heard you took time off for being sick what was wrong with you you can reply with thank you for your concern but it's A Private Matter I'd rather not talk about I encourage you to use the five steps we've previously talked about to get clear on situations in which you need to be assertive expected situations in which you need to be assertive so you can prepare an adequate and an assertive response now we're going to talk about how to be Asser assertive in unexpected situations this is where a negative comment comes out of left field where someone might be aggressive or passive aggressive to you and you are not expecting it at all you don't have your guard up and it's likely that in those times you cave you don't say anything at all and you're certainly not assertive in your response anyway but it is really important in those situations that are unexpected that you are assertive when you need to be because if you are not assertive then that person will start to learn that it's okay to talk to you and to treat you that way preparing for the unexpected can be really difficult to do because you have to be quick on your feet but here are some steps that you can follow pause once they've said their aggressive or passive aggressive comment to you pause take a couple or a few seconds and just pause so you can gather your thoughts this helps you work out what you're going to say to that person and to retrieve some go-to phrases that we're going to talk about in a moment it also helps you to stop reacting in an overly aggressive or abrupt way which is something that happens a lot if you're more of a passive Communicator you let your anger build up and then at some point you just explode and explode with anger in front of that person so by pausing it helps you to give yourself time so you don't do that second is to repeat the question or state so while you're pausing you can repeat the question or the statement that that person said this gives you some extra time to gather your thoughts and to think about how you're going to respond and it also has the bonus of bringing attention back to what that person said to you so they realize and other people realize how unpleasant and inappropriate it was next use some of these goto phrases I understand what you're saying but I'm offended by what you just said I respect your opinion but I have a different point of view to be honest I don't want to answer that question I hope you understand I would like XYZ I'm certain that XYZ I need XYZ I want XYZ the last two in particular are really hard for many people to say to express your needs to express your wants to tell the other person what you need and what you want a lot of us are trained socially to not do that to not express our needs and our wants so when we need to do that when we are becoming more assertive it can be really challenging to do so I encourage you to start giving some thought to your needs and wants think about your daily interactions when you're organizing where to go for lunch with your friends at work or even in your social life do you assertively tell them what you want to eat where you want to go start thinking about whether you do that and whether you should start to do that more in the future in meetings at work start to actively tell people what you want to work on at home start actively telling people you live with what you want to watch on Netflix as you become more practiced in expressing your needs and wants you'll become a lot more confident in expressing your needs and wants and you'll start to learn that most of the time other people just go along with you now if you have trouble being assertive with people on the spot when your mind goes blank then this video up here will help you out with that and if you have trouble being assertive with people who are passive aggressive to you and you want to know how to better handle those people then you should watch this video up here thank you so much for watching this video I hope you got a lot of value from it if you did please hit the like button below subscribe to my channel for more content like this every week and I will see you next week in another video