A Nice Person’s Guide To Becoming More Assertive

The Limitations Of Niceness

When it comes to our business and personal relationships, I think that a lot of the problems that nice people have can be solved by becoming more assertive.  Nice people are great.  They are likable.  They are fun to be around (for a while, at least).  They make you feel better about yourself.

But being nice alone isn’t enough.  Because nice people also lie.  They tell you things about you that aren’t true because they don’t want to hurt your feelings.  They don’t say things to you that they should because they don’t want to rock the boat.  Many of their actions are guided by their self-interest.  By that, I mean that their niceness has more to do with what others think about them – primarily their concern that other people like them – than it has to do with genuine concern, care, and interest in the other person.

There’s a price to be paid for just being nice.  In his book People Skills, Robert Bolton details what he calls “The Price of Nice:”

1. The nice person lives an “unlived” life. They don’t call their own plays.  Their course in life is chosen by other people.  They “go along” with the crowd.  And they kowtow to the demands and whims of other people to “be nice.”
2. The nice person’s relationships tend to be less intimate and satisfying then they desire. Real fulfilling relationships demand two people who interact with one another at deep interpersonal levels.  The nice person forfeits all of that, suppressing their own uniqueness in their effort to conform to the image that the other person demands or expects.  They lose their self and in so doing, lose that quality which enables them to really love.  Their relationships become “acquaintances” instead of enduring friendships.
3. The nice person loses the affection that other people have for them. When someone is submissive in a relationship, that continued quality has a psychological effect on the other person.  They begin to feel guilty for always getting their way, and this results in feelings of pity, irritation, and disgust toward the “nice” person.
4. The nice person’s affection toward others tends to wane over time. In repressing their own feelings to meet the demands of other people, the nice person also begins to develop resentment.  George Bernard Shaw said, “If you begin by sacrificing yourself to those you love, you will end by hating those to whom you have sacrificed yourself.”

Now before I am accused of painting with too broad a brush, I want to make a distinction.  Not all “nice” people fit the image of the strawman I just set up.  A lot of nice people are genuine, caring, and really interested in other people.  Instead of characterizing these people as just “nice,” I probably should critique the action of being nice in itself.

There’s a vast difference between being nice just to be nice (e.g., not rocking the boat, not causing conflict, having people like us, etc.) and really being good.  The quality of goodness includes being nice, but it goes deeper. Just being nice is a façade which masquerades as being good but doesn’t reach its depth.

When we are just nice, we don’t tell other people the things we need to say to maintain our own security in the hope that we will have better relationships.  For example, when someone does something that hurts us, we don’t tell them about it because we want to be nice – because we want them to like us.  When someone’s actions (or lack thereof) begin to destroy our team, niceness can prevent us from confronting them about what they’re doing, extending the problem.

However, when we are genuinely good, when we really care about the other person, we dare to say what needs to be said.  We dare to stand up for ourselves when someone hurts us or is hurting our team.  We dare to say what needs to be said, not just for ourselves, but because we care about the other person and genuinely want to help them grow beyond whatever limitation or action that holds them back. This is how becoming more assertive can help us as well as other people.

The Goodness of Becoming More Assertive

The problem is, nice people are nice.  Nice people like being nice.  Nice people, many times have difficulty saying and doing hard things because they believe that in saying or doing those things, they won’t be nice any longer.  Assertiveness is the solution for helping nice people transition from niceness to goodness.

One of the things that being assertive does that just being nice doesn’t is that it allows us to say and do the things in our relationships that make them meaningful, rich, and more fulfilling.  The best relationships are the ones where we come to each other as equals, recognizing the goodness and the best in the other person as well as their weaknesses and limitations.  At the same time, we come into those relationships understanding our own strengths and failures.  Working through those challenges and obstacles together makes our relationships meaningful.  Well, you can’t do that if you just want to be nice all the time.

Becoming more assertive can give us the tools that we need to walk down those roads with the other people in our lives, to say the things we need to say and do the things we need to do that will enrich both of our lives and even, maybe, make this planet a little bit better.  Assertiveness allows us to be really good and not just nice.

The Difficulty of Becoming More Assertive

Why is it so difficult to become more assertive? I think there are two primary reasons that prevent people from becoming more assertive – Fear and the lack of knowledge.

Nice people are usually nice because they are afraid of conflict and/or confrontation. They have a fear that speaking their mind will destroy some of the most important relationships in their lives. They fear that when they assert themselves, the other person won’t like them, will get mad at them and retaliate. Maybe it’s that there is more of a flight than fight in their personality make up. Maybe it’s cowardice. Or maybe it’s just not wanting the drama and the resolution isn’t worth the time and effort a difficult conversation would take. It can be any or all of these. However, sometimes nice people will use these as a justification for their avoidance and once you get into the habit of avoidance in your relationships – be the business or personal – that habit can be hard to break.

The other reason people aren’t more assertive is the lack of knowledge. We don’t know how to start a difficult conversation. We don’t know the words to say. We don’t know how to express our feelings and emotions confidently. And, we don’t know how it will end.

The good news is that it’s pretty easy to address the second part. In other words, you can become more assertive by learning and implementing techniques that can help you to effectively speak the right words in the right way and enter a difficult conversation with skill. The other part isn’t as easy because overcoming fear is about developing the courage to do what you know you have to do. However, gaining and improving your communication skills will give you confidence and that, in itself, will do something to help overcome fear.

Assertiveness vs. Aggressiveness

Now a word needs to be said on the difference between assertiveness and aggressiveness.  Aggressive people can tend to dominate nice people.  You see this in dysfunctional relationships.  Aggressive people say whatever they want regardless of the consequences or the relationship carnage that they might leave behind.  They have no concern for the other person but just want their own way.  You might think of aggressive people like the two-year-old who throws a temper tantrum to get what they want.  That can describe some aggressive people, but others are bullies who use intimidation tactics to achieve their own ends.

Some of these people may not realize what they do and act this way out of habit or past conditioning (maybe that’s the environment they grew up in – “kill or be killed”).  In these cases, assertiveness can help them to learn to see what they are doing and how it is hurting the other people in their lives and straining their relationships.  Being assertive with these types of people is necessary if we really care about them because it’s the only way they might come to see the reality of their actions.  Speaking the truth to them, in a caring and strategic way, might be the only thing that can help them to grow out of their intimidation tactics and into becoming a contributing and functional member of the organization, the relationship, and society in general.

However, other people are aggressive by design and intent.  They intimidate and bully on purpose to dominate others and set themselves up at the top of the dominance hierarchy.  You might want to characterize these types of people as “evil” but who knows their motivations for doing what they do.  In these cases, assertiveness is even more critical because it allows you to stand up for yourself and refuse to be dominated by an aggressive person.  Assertiveness gives you the tools to protect your own dignity and stand up for your rights.  Assertiveness, in this case, maintains and builds your integrity.

Becoming More Assertive

So, how do we become more assertive?  Here are four steps that can really help nice people grow and build the skill of assertiveness.

1.  Develop Self-Confidence To Become More Assertive

One of the limitations that nice people have that prevents them from becoming more assertive has to do with their own self-confidence.  Low self-esteem and low self-worth prevent us from being assertive.

Because of our insecurities, we don’t want people not to like us.

So, if we find our self-worth in what other people think about us, we allow them to define our existence.  When we are enslaved to the opinions of others, it prevents what philosophers might call “our authentic mode of existence.”  We aren’t true to ourselves.

To get beyond being held captive to the opinion of other people we must, as Susan Scott said in her book Fierce Conversations, have the courage to interrogate reality.   You need to take a reality check on your own self-worth and how much you live by the opinions of other people.  Only once you recognize a deficiency can you start the work of building our own self-confidence (read this on 12 practical ways to build your self-confidence).

When you have higher self-esteem, when you have greater self-worth, the opinions of other people don’t matter as much.  When you develop greater confidence in yourself, you can act, say, and do whatever must be done without the fear of what other people might think.

2.  Value The Other Person to Become More Assertive

Another reason why we may not say and do the things we should is that we really don’t care about the other person.  Think about it.  If someone you know does something that you know is bad for them, if you really cared about them, you would tell them, or you should tell them.  We often hear the cliché that “real” friends tell the truth – real friends will call you out when you need to be called out.  Unfortunately, many people either don’t have “real” friends or those friends don’t really care about them.

When you really value someone, you put that person above their short-term perception of you.  When you really care about someone, you care more about their life and their future than about whether their feelings are going to be hurt or if they aren’t going to like you because you tell them the truth about themselves. Genuinely valuing someone means putting their best interests and their best future above their short-term feelings or discomfort.

Also, put yourself in their shoes.  If you were destroying yourself the way they are, wouldn’t you want your friends to be truthful with you even if it meant you would be angry or offended by that truth?  Most of us would say yes to that.  Most of us want our friends to speak the truth in love about the things that really matter.

Of course, there are people who would rather live a lie.  Some people would rather not know the truth about themselves because knowing that truth would require reflection, action, and maybe even a major life transformation.  Many people would rather live in denial.  That’s unfortunate.

But the fact remains, really valuing someone else – really caring about their life and their future – is the prerequisite for assertiveness.  That doesn’t mean you have to say what needs to be said, necessarily, but if you don’t really value the other person, you probably won’t say or do what you need to say or do.

3.  Have The Courage to Become More Assertive

This quality is perhaps the most significant obstacle to overcome.  Most nice people would say that they have self-confidence.  Most nice people would say that they do indeed value other people.  But they’re scared.  And if we’re honest, tough conversations are scary.  As mentioned above, nice people fear conflict. Who knows what’s going to happen?  Who knows how the other person will respond?  Will they still like us?  Will our relationship continue?  Who knows what happens when it’s all over?

The uncertainty can lead to fear which paralyzes us and prevents us from doing and saying the things we need to do and say.  The only way to overcome fear is with courage.  To have the heart when your heart may seem weak.  That’s courage.  To step into the arena when every fiber of your being doesn’t want to go.  That’s courage.  To jump into the battle when the arrows are flying by your face, and your legs don’t want to move.  That’s courage.

C.S. Lewis said that courage is the virtue at the testing point of every other virtue.  In other words, whenever we want to be virtuous, it takes a step of courage.  Honesty requires courage.  Integrity requires courage.  Character requires courage.  And in this case, assertiveness requires courage.  If you’re looking for some guidelines for how to be more courageous, read this article on how to strengthen your courage in the face of fear.

4. Implement Assertiveness Techniques

One way that can help you to overcome the fear that many times prevents assertiveness is learning some techniques that make assertiveness a bit easier.  Here are three that can help

1. Learn to personalize. Personalizing means framing your communication from your own perspective rather than attributing it to someone else.  This means using words from an “I” perspective.  So instead of saying “you’re a jerk!” you say “I feel disrespected when you act that way.”

The words we say and how we say them have an emotional impact.  Words that come from a “you” perspective (e.g. “you always” or “you never”) are like a big finger pointing right into someone’s face.  These phrases immediately raise emotional barriers and create defensiveness in the other person.  Once this happens, it’s no longer about the issue; it becomes about protecting the ego.

2. Address the behavior rather than the individual. Phrasing your conversation around the specific actions of the other person also helps to prevent defensiveness.  Again, if the other person starts to become defensive, the conversation can quickly go off the rails.  So when you address fault in the behavior instead of attributing it to the person’s character, it can be easier for them to see the error of their ways.

Think of it from another perspective.  If people are telling us how bad of a person we are, we can easily get defensive, angry, and resentful.  They are defaming our character!!  But if someone says that our behavior in a specific instance was inappropriate, that has less of an emotional impact because, after all, we can adjust our behavior.  We have a harder time changing who we are as a person.

3. Use the assertive message template. These techniques can be developed into an assertive message template.  Here’s how it works:

Describe a Specific Behavior

The three-part assertive message starts by describing a specific behavior. You start by saying, “When you do _________,” and you add in the specific behavior that you want to confront. Again, you want to address the behavior in a non-judgmental way.  General descriptions, assigning motives or judging the other person can all lead to defensiveness.  Make it specific and about the behavior without judging.

Personalize Your Feelings

After describing the specific behavior, you would say something like “I feel___________.” This personalization – putting things in “I” terms – lets the other person know in a non-threatening or non-judgmental way how you feel about their behavior. Your feelings are legitimate, and it is crucial that you express them. Here you want to use a specific word that accurately describes how you are feeling. Sometimes this can be challenging because we don’t always know how to express and/or define our feelings or we don’t have the right words to say.  But learning how to accurately describe your feelings can help the other person to better understand how they are contributing to the problem.

Give a Concrete Result

Finally, describe a concrete result of the other person’s behavior. Tell them how their behavior is adversely affecting you.  Make sure that the concrete result is not judgmental or assigning motives to their behavior. Maybe it’s an inconvenience on your time.  Maybe it’s causing you to have to pick up their load.  Whatever it is, make sure you tell them so they can understand what their behavior is doing to you.  They may not have thought about it.

Let them Respond

After giving an assertive message to someone, be silent and let them respond to what you are telling them. This enables them to take responsibility for their behavior and can start a dialogue that will hopefully lead to a solution.  If nothing else, it can provide a foundation for addressing the problem again if it continues.

Conclusion

We all want to be nice.  It’s better to be good.  Assertiveness can be the bridge that moves you beyond niceness.  Assertiveness can help you to have more self-confidence.  It can help you to really show how much you value and care about other people.  And it can provide you great opportunities to strengthen your courage when you face things in life that may be a bit scary.  Assertiveness is the skill that can make “nice” people really good.

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