Be assertive – say no and boost your self esteem

A great part of self esteem is assertiveness and being honest.

Unfortunately many people in our society mix up the psychological concept of assertiveness with aggression. Also people do not understand the concept of self esteem, ans often mix it up with narcissism and selfishness. I remember seeing a film which had the line:

My self esteem does not allow it.

Self esteem is not a part of you that controls you but is the way you look at yourself. Assertiveness is standing for your rights without aggression or manipulation. In fact aggression and manipulation come from lack of self esteem and assertiveness. Again typically things appear the opposite to what they really are. People with low self esteem end up being aggressive and act superior and selfishly. High self esteem, on the other hand, leads to humility, kindness and loving compassion.

One way of being assertive is through honesty and saying what you mean. By honesty I do not imply that you should stop saying white lies but telling the truth on important issues – especially when asked to do favors that we don’t wish to do or we know we will not do – just say no!

Learning to say no when we want to say no may be difficult for some people. We have learned to be compliant or to make excuses.

Someone invites us to a party we have no intention to go and we say, “I’ll try.” At other times we do something we do not want to just because we are too scared to say no.

No matter how much we fool ourselves deep down we know the truth, we know that we were not assertive and did something against our own will,  and this lowers our self esteem. However, when we say no our inner self knows this and our self esteem increases. Also each time you are assertive by saying no when you mean no, it becomes easier next time as we are creatures of habit.

Be authentic, diplomatic and truthful. People can take your negative answers. In the long run your friends will prefer your honesty and the fact that you are not letting them down at the last moment.

So be tactful but be assertive, say no and boost your self esteem.

I’ll later write much more about assertiveness and your rights as a human being. One of your rights is not to answer any question you don’t wish to answer. So if someone asks you a question that you do not wish to answer (religion, politics, too personal question) you can smile and again tactfully say you prefer not to talk about such issue at this time.

I go to the gym often and I always love to go to the sauna. Sometimes the talk gets to politics or religion. I may participate if the people are honestly listening to each other or trying to learn. Otherwise, I just remain quite.

I’m writing an iphone/ipad self improvement app. I need you help:
Please email me with suggestions of features you would like to see in a self improvement app.

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