sacha chua :: living an awesome life

Learning assertiveness

Posted on January 17th, 2010 by Sacha Chua

I’m the youngest of three sisters. Both of my older sisters are adventurous and outgoing. I’m quieter and more reflective. I’d rather curl up with pen and paper than go partying. As a result, I’ve received lots of teasing about being square, listened to lots of unsolicited advice, and had to deal with my own sister spiking my drink. (I didn’t get drunk, but we did argue about that.)

Moving halfway around the world turned out to be great for individuation. (Talking to specialists is a great way to find out what jargon to look for!) I know myself better, and I can stick up for myself.

It’s incredibly liberating to be able to say, “No, I’m not going to <insert activity here>.” Repeatedly, if necessary. I could hear my imaginary Get-It-Done Guy and E-Counsellor cheer me on. I figured that it was worth the experiment, and it was. =)

Assertion is a key life skill. You need to assert yourself in order to protect free time, establish boundaries, negotiate, and do many other things. I’m glad I have these opportunities to learn and practice assertiveness in a relatively safe environment. It’ll be interesting to see how else assertiveness will be useful in life!

Any thoughts or tips on assertiveness? =)

(No Ratings Yet)

 Loading ...

Save to - del.icio.us - Digg it - reddit - StumbleUpon - Twitter

More posts about...: family, life // Add Comment »

Discussion Area - Leave a Comment

Please comment as you, not your organization.

Name (required)

Mail (will not be published) (required)

Website

Comment

Notify me of followup comments via e-mail

On This Day...

• 2009: Ways to make winter better — I get hit pretty hard by the winter blues. The desaturated bleakness of the snow-laden landscape triggers an almost-physical reaction [...]
• 2008: social networking — All that’s needed to turn me from an introvert to a people person is the ability to skip small talk, [...]
• 2008: Searching Your Notes — C-s (isearch-forward) and C-r (isearch-backward) are two of the most useful Emacs keyboard shortcuts you’ll ever learn. To search forward [...]
• 2007: I love to make people’s lives better — Last night, I insisted that my mom stop working. I wanted her to be able to spend some relaxed time with [...]
• 2007: Creating Rainmakers — I spotted an intriguing book today. Creating Rainmakers: The Manager’s Guide to Training Professionals to Attract New Clients. The book [...]
• 2007: Driving lessons II — I can still make U-turns. And park. And deal with inclines. And park. I’m too polite, though! <laugh> Whenever I saw [...]
• 2007: PhDcomics guy in Toronto, and I’m not there! — Join the creator of the popular comic strip for grad students, Piled Higher and Deeper (PhD) Jorge Cham on Wednesday [...]
• 2005: The largest Philippine IT organization is running a search for — The Philippine Computer Society (largest IT organization in the Philippines) is running a search for “Digital Pinay 2005.” They’re looking for [...]
• 2005: Sheer hilarity — ../personal/digitalfilipina.doc Expect a long rant from me later. On Technorati: digitalpinay, issues, women, philippines
• 2005: Geek-out weekend — Had a fantastic weekend geeking out. Saturday’s TLUG technical presentation introduced me to the joys of Squeak, and I stayed as [...]