By Aaron Kaplan
Asking for what you want and setting boundaries around what you don’t want is a key life skill. But sometimes in our enthusiasm to practice this skill, we overdo our own assertiveness and end up with a potential client, customer, or employee who shuts down, gets angry, or feels resentful. Here are four tips for developing your assertiveness in a way that will actually strengthen, deepen, and enrich your professional (and even personal) relationships, thus avoiding the “alienation trap”:
1. Get Clear
Being assertive starts with knowing what you are and aren’t willing to be, do, or have. For many of us, coming to this knowledge is a real task unto itself. Here, it may be useful to ask, “In an ideal world, what would I like to happen?” Focusing on an ideal outcome opens our minds, prevents us from falling into passivity or “victim-thinking,” and helps us get really clear on what we want and don’t want.
2. Set Boundaries
Once you know what outcome you need (or want), share it. Pay attention to the way stating your boundary feels in your body. With practice, you can actually sense when you’re hitting the “sweet spot.” It can feel really pleasurable, even exhilarating, to express your needs or desires out loud. Phrases like “such and such doesn’t work for me” are simple ways of being assertive while maintaining a connection with your client or employee.
3. Make a Regular Habit of Stating Your Needs and Desires
You can build your assertiveness the same way you build any muscle – exercise. Practice speaking about your needs on a daily basis regardless if they are big or small. When you speak about things that are less controversial, both you and your customers and employees get used to your assertiveness. It becomes easier for you to practice and for others to hear. Also, when bigger issues come along, you and your employees, clients, or customers will have a healthy process in place for dealing with differences in needs and you’ll have greater confidence in the resilience of your relationship.
4. Give as Much as You Get
Assertiveness is a two-way street. If you want your boundaries to be respected, you must return the courtesy to others. If you want employees to take care of certain tasks or errands, just make a simple request and ask them when they can realistically get them accomplished. If a client or customer asks you to give them a little extra attention, respect that if at all possible. When it comes to following through on someone’s reasonable request, actions really do speak louder than words. If an employee, customer, or client isn’t respecting your boundaries even though you’ve set them clearly, it may be time to reevaluate your relationship with this individual and decide whether it is truly worth keeping this individual on as a client, customer, or employee.
Aaron Kaplan, Founder/Director of the Kaplan Project LLC, can be reached by phone at 832-831-9451, by email at [email protected], or visit his website at www.thekaplanprojectcoaching.com.
