Assertiveness Workbook FROM THE PUBLISHER
This self-directed program teaches readers to speak up and say what they mean at work and at home. Written supportively, it uses proven cognitive behavioral techniques to help individuals build self-confidence, set boundaries, and determine appropriate responses.
SYNOPSIS
Two kinds of people pick up books on assertiveness. Some want to polish their image. They have a face they present to the world, and sometimes it cracks. Sometimes the mask falls off. Sometimes people see through it. They want to learn how to hold the mask more firmly, how to present it more rigidly, how to prevent others from seeing them so easily. They have rejected themselves, and they have decided that they want to choose the personality (or lack of it) that they display to the world. Often they want to learn how to control others more effectively. How to push others to agree with them, see their way of doing things, do it their way.
Some of the skills in this book may help them in their quest. But the book isn�t written for them. At least, it�s not written to help them in the way they want to be helped.
Assertiveness isn�t about building a good disguise. It�s about developing the courage to take the disguise off. It�s designed to help the other group of people. The ones who have already tried wearing a mask, and have found they can�t breathe very well with it on. They want to go out into the world naked-faced, as themselves, but not defenseless. They want to be themselves in a way that doesn�t push others off-stage. In a way that invites the people they meet to be more fully themselves too.
Assertiveness, then, is about being there.
Many people in today�s society fear conflict and criticism. They believe that in any conflict they would lose, and that any criticism would crush them. They feel that they have no right to impose their views � or for that matter, themselves � on the world. They have been trained from childhood to believe that their role is to accept and live up to the standards that other people impose. Being visible, being flawed, holding opinions, or having wishes of their own all leave them open to attack.
Is this you?
The solution is to be invisible. To offer no opinion until others have done so, and then only to agree. To go along with any request. To impose no boundaries or barriers. To prevent yourself from ever saying "no." To give up on directing your own life. To pacify those who might disapprove of you. To hide your ideas, your dreams, your wishes, and your emotions. To dress, act, and live in order to blend into the background and disappear. To exist not so much as a person but as a mirror for other people: reflecting back their ideas, their wishes, their expectations, their hopes, and their goals. To reflect and thereby vanish. Anything to keep yourself from really being there.
Unfortunately, this solution does not really work. Humans are not meant to be invisible, or to live as reflections of the lives of others. Extinguishing the self is not an option. It leads to greater fear, more helplessness, sharper resentment, and deeper depression.
Other people see life as little more than a competition. If they are not to become invisible themselves, then others will have to be invisible. There is no choice. Their own views must be accepted. Their wishes must be honored. Their way must be everyone�s way. And should anyone not give in, the anger will flow. The issue will be forced. And the wishes, hopes, and desires of others will be ignored or trampled. To be there, other people (with their inconvenient attitudes and opinions) will have to be absent.
Is this you?
The competitive approach doesn�t work either. The anger is never really satisfied. When others give in, it is never joyfully. And they begin drifting away to the exits, leaving the angry person alone to resent the desertion. The effort to control others makes life uncontrollable.
The real solution? To be there. Not to be perfect. To expose our flaws, our irrational emotions and opinions, our strange preferences, our incomprehensible dreams, our unaccountable tastes, and our all-too-human selves to others. To be there. Not so that others will bow down to us, or hide themselves from us. But in a way that invites others to be there as well. A way that acknowledges the right of everyone to be every bit as irrational, flawed, and human as we are.
Assertiveness is all about being there.
In this workbook you will learn about many of the basic skills and ideas involved in being more fully present in your world and your life. Many of these skills you already know. Some may be new. In order to bring them into your life it will take practice and effort.
So: Ready?
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