How do I become more assertive?

[BIankets]

My partner has joked that I’m “a pushover”, and he’s right. All the time on MN I see confident, assertive women who are entirely at ease saying “that doesn’t work for me” and I admire them so much. How do you do it? What are your secrets? Would you be willing to take on an apprentice??

I used to be such a pleaser but I honestly think once you've encountered cheeky fuckery enough times it gets a lot easier to say no.

Now I'm really quite good at it. Try it, it's liberating

I think it's about self esteem, OP. If you let people walk all over you, it means to me that you don't like yourself very much. I get upset when I'm treated badly because I'm important. My feelings and wishes are valid (even if I don't get what I want in the end). I think about what I want, what is right for me generally.

I think anyone who isn't assertive needs to think about why their feelings aren't valid, why they don't like themselves, why they accept being treated badly and work from there. Therapy helped me a lot because my lack of assertiveness was caused by my childhood. I was brought up to believe I wasn't important and couldn't say 'no', couldn't articulate my feelings and didn't like myself very much. I still struggle with the liking myself but the impotent rage after I've not been assertive is worse than any fall out from standing up for myself.

@handslikecowstits Thank you, that’s really interesting and helpful, and I suspect our root causes are similar. Therapy sounds like a good idea and certainly one I’ll look into.

Assertiveness sits in the middle of the line with aggressiveness to one side and passive to the other
Both aggressive and passive are natural reactions to situations
Assertiveness is using a positive thought process
Once I realised that it was easy to say no without feeling I needed to justify my choice
Hope that helps