How To Be Assertive

It’s all very well having lots of strategies that other people can use to become more assertive but there are times when the phrase “physician, heal thyself” rings loudly in my ears.

In the space of a few days at the beginning of the month, I was asked to take on several projects that require a lot of time and preparation.

A common conversation in supervision is the one where I tell my supervisor I’ve taken on too much and she asks me what I’m going to do about it and I, like a recovering addict, promise to change my behaviour only to lapse soon afterwards.

“Sure, I can do a presentation on “How to be assertive,” I hear myself saying knowing full well that I have too much on and that whilst I do genuinely want to do it I’m also being a bit of a passive people pleaser.

All the jobs in and around the house take a back seat while I ponder the way in which I’ll approach assertiveness.

“I can’t just list ways to be more assertive,” I tell the dog, who seems to have become even more laid back in the face of my relentless activity. “I’ll sound like a live Google search.”

I hit upon what feels like a good idea and position my talk around the reasons we find it hard to be assertive which are all to do with feeling unworthy and fearing the consequences of standing up for ourselves.

I write a pithy section on the alternative behaviours we display when we aren’t being assertive namely, “passive”, “aggressive”, and “passive-aggressive”.

“When you say yes to the world you say no to yourself,” I plan to tell my audience as I wrestle to keep multiple plates spinning during a mental-health awareness week in which I have been completely unaware of my own mental health.

The grass appears now to be growing almost taller as I stare at it and Daisy looks at me as if to say, “Are you going to cut that because picking up what I’m going to do out there from grass that long is going to be a challenge.”

I ignore her and turn my attention to the next project which is a talk I have been asked to give about mental health at an education webinar.

“What do you want me to cover?” I ask.

“How to spot and manage anxiety, stress, and depression in the workplace.”

“How long have I got?”

“If you can just do 7 or 8 minutes that would be great.”

I begin to feel anxious, stressed and depressed at shoehorning the basis of almost all mental health issues into the time one might expect to wait for a coffee.

I decide to write the speech verbatim to avoid my inevitable flights of fancy and begin with a statement of passive aggression that enables me to tell the organisers that what they’re asking me to do is impossible without having to tell them that it’s impossible.

In a quiet moment at the end of the week, I’m making tea and wondering why I can’t say “no” more effectively.

“Alexa, define God complex.”

Inflated feelings of personal ability and self-importance don’t feel as if they fit but then I wonder if people who have a God complex recognise these things in themselves anyway.

I decide not to bother Alexa with that one and go out to cut the grass.

I move aggressively up and down the lawn, shaking the cuttings out into the compost with intent.

I’m aware of the power lead nestling close by as I move back up towards the house but I think I’ve given myself enough space and I don’t have time to stop and check.

Then, bang! I cut through the lead and there’s no sound but for the mocking blackbirds and a voice echoing in my own head assuring me I am anything but God.