Improving Self Confidence and Assertiveness Skills
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Improving Self Confidence and Assertiveness Skills
By Margi Matters
The set of skills that come under the banner of assertiveness skills are a way of both expressing yourself confidently and, in learning and using the skills, they also assist in improving self confidence.
You feel differently about yourself when you feel you have handled a person or a situation in a confident or masterful manner. Think of a time when you did this and remember how it felt. When you speak up, or make a clear request, or when you are able to take good care of your rights and needs it is a natural boost to your self esteem and the more you use assertiveness skills, the more you enter the positive spiral of improving self confidence.
Like any skill, assertiveness skills are learned and practiced. At first it can feel strange or awkward communicating in these ways, however the skills themselves are straightforward and simple methods or formulae for communicating in a clear, direct, accurate, respectful and honest way. The greater challenge for most people is not in learning the skill but the anxiety about being assertive – how others may react to the more empowered version of ourselves! Chances are if you have low self esteem and a history of not being confident, there are some significant people around you who have a vested interest in keeping you powerless . And you have probably learned some fears around “hurting” others by not agreeing with them or not pleasing them. Or some guilt about being judged as “selfish”.
When you are not assertive, when you allow other people to “walk all over you”, treat you with disrespect or in abusive ways, take advantage of you or exploit you or when you do not have the confidence to assert what you really want for yourself or to take up opportunities, you pay a price with your self esteem. You may get angry with yourself or lay awake at night running the situation or the conversation or the decision over and over in your mind “wishing’ you had handled it differently. Regret is a potent source of disempowerment, characterised with thoughts about “I wish I had” or “I should have” or “I ought to have” or “if only I hadn’t…” Ruminating and depression are not far behind once we build some of these kinds of regrets.
Self talk either boosts self esteem and confidence, or erodes it. When you feel bad about how you handled some person, situation or decision, when you feel you missed a great opportunity it gives your negative self talk a lot of ammunition and can set you up to feel even less confident the next time something similar arises. You can lose confidence in your ability to make good decisions for instance. This is turn can further decrease your confidence.
If you want to work on improving self confidence, it is essential to learn the skills of assertiveness.
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