Assertiveness is one of those psychological concepts that everybody thinks they understand until you ask them to define it.
Many people confuse it with confidence. Others confuse it with being confrontational or aggressive. Some imagine assertive people as those who return food in restaurants for the sake of it and enjoy the “get your manager” routine.
In reality, assertiveness is simply the ability to communicate what you think, feel, want, or need in a direct and respectful way.
If you regularly say yes when you mean no, avoid difficult conversations, replay arguments in the shower three days after the event, wake up with a sense of dread that you offended someone, or find yourself becoming increasingly irritated with people who have failed to read your mind (when you did not outwardly communicate your preferences), there is a reasonable chance that assertiveness is something worth working on.
One of the difficulties is that assertiveness often feels uncomfortable - we all want to please people to a certain extent. We want to be liked. And it’s universally cool to be laid back. All of these ideas seem to run counter to the stereotypical assertive person, but I think this is a myth. Knowing what you like, don’t like, and want, is cool. Communicating it to others in a way that reaffirms these perimeters is the tricky bit.
The good news is that assertiveness is a skill. Like most skills, it improves with practice. The bad news is that practising it can feel deeply unnatural at first.
Here are a few exercises that I often recommend.
1. Learn to say no without an apology statement
Many people respond to a request as though they are appearing before a judge.
“Could you help me with this?”
“No, unfortunately I can’t because I’ve had a busy week and I’ve already committed to several other things and I’m feeling quite tired and my dog...”
A simple refusal is usually enough.
“I can’t do that”
“I’m not available. But let me know how it goes”
“That doesn’t work for me, but thanks for the invite”
“Padel is not my thing, but thanks anyway”
“Tickets to Coldplay? I’d rather leap from a tall structure with zero chance of survival, but thanks - I’ll watch all your Instagram stories of every song”
Most people dramatically overestimate how much explanation is required. In reality, excessive justification often creates more opportunities for negotiation. The more reasons you provide, the more reasons somebody can challenge.
Learning to stop after the sentence is surprisingly difficult. It can also be liberating, but you have to commit it for a while.
2. Become a broken record
Some people interpret boundaries as invitations to negotiate.
You say no. They ask again. You explain. They ask differently. You clarify. They try another angle. This is where the broken record technique becomes useful.
“I understand, but I’m not able to do that” or “Thanks but that’s not really my thing”
The important thing is that the sentence does not change. Most people instinctively try to improve their argument. They begin searching for better evidence, stronger reasons, or more persuasive language.
The problem is that the discussion is no longer about the original request. It has become a debate about whether your boundary is sufficiently justified.
Repeating yourself calmly removes the debate.
It can feel awkward and repetitive, but that is largely the point.
3. Practise on things that do not matter
One of the biggest mistakes people make is waiting for a high-stakes situation before attempting to be assertive.
They avoid small opportunities for years and then decide they are finally going to stand up for themselves during a difficult family conflict, a relationship crisis, or an important workplace disagreement.
Assertiveness is best developed through low-risk situations.
Ideas? Ask for a different table, with a better view. Send food back if it is wrong. Express a preference when making plans. Tell somebody that a meeting time does not work for you. Then sit with the discomfort of being a little more assertive in these everyday situations.
These interactions are rarely life-changing. But what they do provide is repetition. Over time, your nervous system begins to learn that expressing yourself does not automatically lead to catastrophe. Actually, no one really cares that much.
4. Replace apologies with gratitude
Many people apologise far more than they realise.
“Sorry to bother you”
“Sorry for chasing”
“Sorry for the delay”
Some apologies are entirely appropriate. If you reverse your car into somebody’s garden wall, a ‘sorry’ is probably in order. But many people apologise for taking up space. They apologise for asking questions, expressing needs, following up on requests, or merely existing in what they perceive to be as an inconvenient way.
A useful alternative is gratitude.
“Thank you for your patience”
“Thank you for your time”
“Thank you for getting back to me”
The content of the message remains polite, but the tone changes considerably. Stop positioning yourself as a problem that requires forgiveness.
5. Own your preferences
A lot of people spend their lives carefully concealing what they actually want.
“Where would you like to eat?”
“I don’t mind”
“What do you want to do this weekend?”
“Whatever everybody else wants”
Occasionally this is genuine flexibility. More often it is the anxiety of choosing and being responsible for the outcome, dressed up as politeness. There is a fear someone might disagree with your preference, or will be disappointed with something you chose. Part of assertiveness involves becoming comfortable with the uncertainty that other people may want something different, and they might even be pissed off at you.
You can prefer Italian food without insisting that everybody else does too, and you can prefer coffee without launching a campaign against tea. Preferences are not dichotomous, and they are not demands. They’re just pieces of information. The people around you generally benefit from knowing what you actually think. I bet you’ve had visitors who refused to make a decision and show autonomy, and it drove you crazy. That kind of indecisionism is almost always annoying.
6. Use ‘I’ statements
There are few psychological techniques that have been repeated so often that they sound cliché. Unfortunately, some of them work.
Consider the difference between saying:
“You never listen to me”
And:
“I don’t feel listened to”
The first statement invites an argument about whether the accusation is true. The second communicates your experience.
That does not mean the conversation will suddenly become harmonious. However, it does reduce the likelihood that the discussion immediately turns into a courtroom back and forth in which both parties are attempting to prove each other wrong.
7. Learn to accept compliments
This is one of the most overlooked aspects of assertiveness.
Somebody says something kind and our first instinct is often to reject it.
“That presentation was excellent”
“No it wasn’t, I didn’t...”
“Thank you so much”
“It was nothing”
“Wow - you passed with distinction. Well done”
“I just got lucky”
Many people seem to believe that arguing with compliments is a sign of humility.
In practice, it often looks like discomfort. And rejecting compliments robs the person complimenting you of the opportunity to do so.
We might confuse accepting praise with agreeing that we are exceptional. These are not the same thing. Accepting a compliment simply means allowing another person’s positive observation to exist without immediately trying to dismantle it.
Others respond by instantly throwing the compliment back.
“No, you’re amazing”
Again, this sounds polite, but it can function as a way of escaping attention.
A useful exercise is to make your response boring.
“Thank you. That’s really kind of you to say”
“Thank you, I appreciate that”
“Thank you. I’ve worked hard on that”
Then stop talking. No qualifications, no self-deprecation, and no frantic attempts to wriggle out the spotlight. Receiving a compliment without diminishing yourself is a powerful form of assertiveness.
8. Expect discomfort
This is probably the most important point here. People often assume that assertiveness should feel natural. If it feels awkward, they conclude they must be doing it badly. That is not how behavioural change works.
If you have spent years avoiding conflict, prioritising other people’s needs, minimising your preferences, or suppressing your opinions, then speaking more directly will obviously feel uncomfortable. That feeling is not evidence that something has gone wrong, but that something is changing.
Most people wait for confidence before they act. In reality, it’s the action that produces confidence, and then, with repetition, those two things become reciprocally reinforcing. It emerges through repeated experiences of discovering that the thing you feared was not quite as anxiety provoking as you imagined.
At some point, people can only respond to the version of you that you actually show them. If that version never expresses a preference, never communicates a boundary, never asks for what it needs, and never allows itself to be seen, then everybody around you is left guessing.
That is an exhausting way to live, for you and for them.
