Communication Skills Power

To assert yourself means to confidently express what you feel, what you need, and what you expect from others in a non-threatening manner. However, in the workplace sometimes asserting oneself can be easier said than done.

Often the work environment can be highly demanding and stressful and, as a result, be also a difficult place to effectively assert your self. However, the good news is that it can be done. Here are some tips to help you do that.

First and foremost, you need to know yourself, knowing what you want or need from your co-workers. Knowing what we need or want from others requires us to have an understanding of ourselves and what is expected of us, especially in the work environment.

Knowing, for example, what is required to complete a particular project and your responsibilities in regard to its completion will help you identify what you want or need from co-workers to fulfill those responsibilities. Once you know this then you can objectively request or delegate the needed help by asserting yourself.

When asserting yourself to gain the help of others in the workplace you want to be as detailed, yet as concise, as possible when instructing or explaining your wants and/or needs to them. If, in explaining your needs or wants, you are not clear you can open the door to confusion and, as we all know, confusion is counterproductive to accomplishing anything, much less effectively asserting yourself.

If you sense confusion encourage your co-workers to ask questions so that you can clarify yourself.

Sometimes someone may ask a question in a negative way. Address all negative feedback in a rationally way and do not take it in as a personal attack.

Many people do not know how to effectively ask questions and it’s not that they mean to be negative, it often is just the way have learned to communicate. If you can help them or guide them attempt to do so.

Also, sometimes people are preoccupied with other thoughts when asking a question in a negative manner. If this is the case give that person the opportunity to discuss or vent their preoccupation if you are in a position to do so.

In almost every work environment there is someone who knows how to get under the skin of others. If you happen to experience this with a co-worker don’t become aggressive, but rather turn the situation around by joking with them, or even being nice to them.

If their behavior is offensive let them know in a direct, firm and logical manner that what they are doing is offending you. If this fails you may then need to get others involved to correct the behavior.

When asserting yourself with managers or supervisors it is wise to know what you are going to say before you say it. Again, this requires you knowing what you want or need form these people before you approach them.

Many managers don’t have time to help you sort out what you want or need from them and if they have to help you with this you aren’t asserting yourself.

Having the courage to speak your mind is also a part of assertiveness.

But speaking your mind must be done without being an offense or belligerent to others, while at the same time expressing your wants or needs.  If you are offensive or belligerent people will perceive you as being aggressive, and aggression is not being assertive.

Aggressive behavior is threatening to other people, whereas assertiveness is not.

Self-confidence is having the belief in our ability to do or accomplish something, or to succeed. It largely involves our past learning experiences, successes, and achievements.

For many of us self-confidence can fluctuate up and down, depending on the daily challenges we face in comparison with our ability to deal with those challenges. However, building a sustainable and balanced self-confidence is achievable.  What follows are some ways to do just that.

First and foremost, building a lasting self-confidence requires a degree of focus and the determination to follow through toward real and solid achievements. There is no quick way to acquire self-confidence. It requires work because that’s what success requires, and it is success in our endeavors that breeds self-confidence. Thus, the more successes you have the more lasting your self-confidence will be.

Secondly, to build upon the self-confidence that you already have take an inventory and recall your past successes. Bring to mind the feeling you had at the moment of each of those successes. Experience those successes in your mind again and then apply that experience to the current challenge you might be facing.

Many athletes perform this very mental exercise prior to every competition they participate in. Some call it “psyching the self up”. But it’s that recalled feeling that help these competitors build the lasting self-confidence to be successful in each and every competition.

Goal setting is also important to establishing lasting self-confidence. Often we successfully accomplish a task and reap the rewarding feeling of self-confidence, only to have our self-confidence dissipate over time. This is because we didn’t set other goals after completing the previous one.

If you want to have lasting self-confidence then you need to continuously set goals before yourself and accomplish them each and every time, one after the other. Moreover, by setting goals and accomplishing them you put structure into your life. Structure can help in establishing a lasting self-confidence.

Confident self talk is another way to build lasting self-confidence. Let yourself know you are capable of accomplishing your goals. Tell yourself that you will effectively execute the strategies necessary to reach your goal.

If necessary think the strategies through, envisioning yourself in the execution of each and every step. This is called visualization and it will influence your self-confidence.

Our thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are all inter-related. Whenever you act confidently it will help increase your self-confidence. This is especially important to do when your self-confidence begins to diminish, which at times happens to even the best.

To act confidently keep your head up, put a bounce in your step, and focus on those things you can control. Even when things don’t seem so good, this behavior can activate thoughts of self-confidence.

To maintain a lasting self-confidence it is very important to have and focus on achievable goals. If your goals are realistically beyond your immediate reach you may be setting yourself up for a failure and failure, although it is part of the learning process, may not help you to establish lasting self-confidence.

Instead, set goals for yourself that are challenging, but ones that you know you can reach and successfully accomplish with a bit of hard work and determination.

Self-confidence comes not just from the accomplishment of our goals, but more from the knowledge of the hard work we invested into accomplishing them. Almost every true soldier knows that it’s not just the winning of the battle that makes a soldier, but more importantly it’s the battle itself that makes a soldier a soldier.

Yes, soldiers do reflect upon the glory of victory, but they reflect more upon the sweat, blood, and tears that made the victory possible. Lasting self-confidence is developed through the same principle.

Developing self esteem is a need that we all feel in varying degrees. Some people always seem to feel that they are on top of the world while others always feel kinda blue. How does one develop good self esteem?

1. The first thing you have to learn is that you should seek approval from within, not from other people. When you were a child, it was only natural that you seek the approval of your parents and other adults in your family. But now that you are an adult, you should learn to get approval from your own self.

2. To get approval from yourself, you first have to know what it is you need in life. This means knowing what you need yourself, not what other people say you need. You will find that there will always be many people who will want to dictate to you what you should go after in life. To be able to secure self-approval, you have to know what you want and go after it, so that when you succeed you will genuinely feel self-approval.

3. Do not blame yourself when things outside your control go awry. Honest self-approval comes when you acknowledge that there are some things that you just cannot determine.

4. On the other hand, do not underestimate your talents. A person with low self-esteem will feel that he cannot accomplish many things when in fact he is quite talented. If you have the right amount of self-esteem, you will definitely go far in life.

5. Do you think you have a more deep-seated problem contributing to your feelings of low self-esteem? Maybe you need a counselor or psychologist to help you through this. Some of us need a little support from other people to regain our sense of self-worth.

6. Find out who you really are. This means determining what you really stand for, and what your value system is (according to you, not according to what other people say you should believe in.) When you know who you really are, it will be harder for other people to bring you down.

7. Take responsibility for the choices you make in life. This is the way to real happiness. When you acknowledge that you are the one who creates your own future, you will be in a better position to reach for your life goals.

8. Write down the things that make you feel worried on a piece of paper. Then take another look at them. You will find that many of the things that worry you are really quite minor things in reality.

9. Learn to recognize that success often comes when you try to address your failures. Solutions crop up when you least expect it. So think of failure as an opportunity to try again with another solution until you get it right.

10. One big mistake many people make is to compete with other people. In life, you are not competing with other people; on the contrary, you are actually trying to beat your own record in whatever project you undertake. You are only as good as your last performance.

11. Be willing to take risks. People with low self esteem always seem to think that they will fail so they lose their nerve pursuing new endeavors. On the other hand, people with high self esteem prefer to be risk takers - and you know what? Most of the time, risk taking pays off for them. And when you succeed at being a risk taker, you help build your self esteem bit by bit.

12. Practice positive thinking. There are many historical figures who have proven that positive thinking is a great attitude to have to boost your self esteem. Success is based on positive thinking, followed by positive doing.

Developing self esteem is easier than you think. Hopefully, these steps will help you in your attempts at developing self esteem.

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