Balancing Assertiveness with Social Acceptance

Today, I received Susan Cain’s newsletter called The Kindred Letters, where she wrote about the disapproval of others. She started the newsletter with these three questions:

Do you experience an acute sting when other people disapprove of you?

Do you care deeply about (pardon the oncoming cliché) living authentically?

Does it sometimes seem that these two cares (feeling pained by others’ disapproval; wishing to “be yourself” and say what you think) are at odds with each other?

She then developed the topic and included her thoughts. One in particular hit home: 

“Some of us need, quite consciously, to practice being assertive – which just means practicing the expression of our thoughts and feelings, while respecting the thoughts and feelings of other people. And when this leads to the disapproval of others, and therefore to our own acute discomfort, we can practice the acceptance of this discomfort as part of life – and as part of growth. Try starting small. Express yourself in low-stakes situations, with people who love you.” -Susan Cain.

There was a time when being assertive (disposed to or characterized by bold or confident statements and behavior1) wasn’t in my skill set. I was a doer, not a talker, and expressing my thoughts was hard. I worked very hard on improving that aspect, and I think that after 20 years or so, I’m much more assertive. I don’t think that a person can reach perfection in this area, especially when you think that whatever you do or say will be judged and people will disapprove of you. But you need to keep working at it and break that barrier.

I found this useful chart about assertiveness so you can see that this skill is not easy to master.

https://helpfulprofessor.com/assertiveness-examples/

I hope that you have a great week, my friends and If you like Susan Cain, author of Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking, then I recommend that you subscribe to her newsletter here. She is a master motivational speaker and writer and will uplift your day for sure. 

  1. https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/assertive ↩︎

24 thoughts on “Balancing Assertiveness with Social Acceptance”

  3. Thanks for focusing on assertiveness, Edward. I began to learn the skills when I was in college, sorely needed after simply following others suggestions no matter how uncomfortable they made me feel. It is an important skill for all of us to learn.

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    1. You’re absolutely right, Rebecca. I wish I had started working on that when I was in college instead of struggling the first few years in the Army. Life would have been much better, but it is what it is, and at least I was able to overcome and improve my assertiveness.

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  5. This is a great post. Interestingly, I’ve always felt that the people worth listening to are the ones who aren’t assertive. People who are naturally assertive are usually the windbags with nothing much to say. It’s strange.

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    1. That is an excellent point, and it definitely applies in most cases. I hated sitting in meetings where people were just rambling for an hour and nothing was decided or done. That’s why I really like what Susan Cain says about practicing the expression of our thoughts and feelings. I would rather listen to a thoughtful, non-assertive person than to an assertive person talking nonsense.

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    1. You are so right about that, Mary. It all depends on the situation and, I might add, the season in life. I must admit that when I started my career, I wasn’t able to say no to a lot of things, especially the phone calls during the weekends and then the emails once we were issued the terrible Blackberries. Now, I don’t have issues saying no to people and family, and I use the hell out of my “Do Not Disturb” mode on my iPhone. I only have a few numbers that will bypass that when I’m sleeping. Also, it’s difficult to formulate complete thoughts when you are young and don’t have the necessary experience (life and professional), so by the time you say something, it’s too late.

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  8. Nice, Edward! Love this. I’ve often been told I’m too assertive but I sometimes have to be in the field I work in. If not, you’ll get eaten alive, but I do really resonate with the wanting to be yourself and also not wanting to hurt others’ feelings or to offend. It’s only after I’ve done the bit of “assertiveness” where I find out sometimes maybe I’ve been a little too much, and then I feel really really bad 😆 my intentions are always for the best outcomes, however…balance is surely very important in this aspect.

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    1. You’re right. Sometimes you need to crank up the assertive knob to max to be listened to, especially in your field, like you said. The same happened in the Army, especially in combat, so I had to learn fast.

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