The Practice of Self-Assertiveness

Some years ago I was addressing a graduate class in psychology and I wanted them to understand at what subtle level the fear of self-assertion can show up. I asked if anyone present believed he or she had a right to exist. Everyone's hand went up. Then I asked for a volunteer to assist me with a demonstration. A young man came to the front of the room, and I said to him, "Would you please just stand facing the class, and say aloud several times, 'I have a right to exist.' Say it slowly and notice how - you feel saying it. And while you are doing this, I want everyone in the class to consider: Do you believe him? Do you think he really feels what he is saying?"

The young man put his hands on his hips and belligerently declared, "I have a right to exist." He said it as if preparing for battle. With each repetition, he sounded more pugnacious.

"No one is arguing with you," I pointed out. "No one is challenging you. Can you say it without defiance or defensiveness?"

He could not. The anticipation of an attack was always in his voice. No one believed in his conviction about what he was saying.

A young woman came up and said in a pleading voice and a smile begging to be forgiven, "I have a right to exist." No one believed her, either.

Someone else came up. He sounded arrogant, supercilious, affected, an actor playing a part with embarrassing ineptitude.

A student protested, "But this isn't a fair test. They're shy, not used to speaking in front of people, so they sound strained. " I asked him to come to the front and say, simply, "Two and two make four. " He did so with complete ease and conviction. Then I asked him to say, "I have a right to exist.!' He sounded tense, flippant, unconvincing. The class laughed. They understood. Standing in front of the class and saying two and two make four was not difficult. Asserting the right to exist was.

"What does the statement 'I have a right to exist' mean to you?" I asked.

"Obviously in this context we're not taking it primarily as a political statement, as in the Declaration of Independence. Here, we mean something more psychological. But what?"

"It means my life belongs to me," said one student.

"It means I can do my own thing," said another.

"It means I don't have to fulfill my parents' expectations for me, I can fulfill my own," said another.

"It means I can say no when I want to," said another.

"It means I have a right to respect my self-interest."

"It means what I want matters." "It means I can say and do what I think is right." "It means I can follow my own destiny."

"It means my father can't tell me what to do with my life." " It means I don't have to build my whole life around not upsetting Mother. "

These were some of the private meanings of the statement "I have a right to exist." And this is what they were unable to assert with serenity and confidence to a roomful of their peers. The point made, I began to talk with them about self-assertiveness and self-esteem.

What Is Self-Assertiveness?

Self-assertiveness means honoring my wants, needs, and values and seeking appropriate forms of their expression in reality. Its opposite is that surrender to timidity that consists of consigning myself to a perpetual underground where everything that I am lies hidden or stillborn - to avoid confrontation with someone whose values differ from mine, or to please, placate, or manipulate someone, or simply to "belong."

Self-assertion does not mean belligerence or inappropriate aggressiveness; it does not mean pushing to the front of the line or knocking other people over; it does not mean upholding my own rights while being blind or indifferent to everyone else's. It simply means the willingness to stand up for myself, to be who I am openly, to treat myself with respect in all human encounters. It means the refusal to fake my person to be liked.

To practice self-assertiveness is to live authentically, to speak and act from my innermost convictions and feelings - as a way of life, as a rule (allowing for the obvious fact that there may be particular circumstances in which I may justifiably choose not to do so - for example when confronted by a holdup man).

Appropriate self-assertiveness pays attention to context. The forms of self-expression appropriate when playing on the floor with a child are obviously different from those appropriate for a staff meeting. To respect the difference is not to "sacrifice one's authenticity" but merely to stay reality focused. In every context, there will be appropriate and inappropriate forms of self-expression. Sometimes self-assertiveness is manifested through volunteering an idea or paying a compliment; sometimes through a polite silence that signals nonagreement; sometimes by refusing to smile at a tasteless joke. In work situations, one cannot necessarily voice all one's thoughts, and it is not necessary to do so. What is necessary is to know what one thinks - and to remain real.

While what is appropriate self-expression varies with the context, in every situation there is a choice between being authentic or inauthentic, real or unreal. If we do not want to face this, of course, we will deny that we have such a choice. We will assert that we are helpless. But the choice is always there.

What Self-Assertiveness Is and Is Not

1. In a class society, when we see a superior talking to an inferior, it is the inferior's eyes that are lowered. It is the slave who looks down, not the master. In the South, there was a time when a black man could be beaten for the offense of daring to look directly at a white woman. Seeing is an act of self-assertion and has always been understood as such. The first and basic act of self-assertion is the assertion of consciousness. This entails the choice to see, to think, to be aware, to send the light of consciousness outward toward the world and inward toward our own being. To ask questions is an act of self-assertion. To challenge authority is an act of self-assertion. To think for oneself - and to stand by what one thinks - is the root of self-assertion. To default on this responsibility is to default on the self at the most basic level.

Note that self-assertiveness should not be confused with mindless rebelliousness. "Self-assertiveness" without consciousness is not self-assertiveness; it is drunk-driving. Sometimes people who are essentially dependent and fearful choose a form of assertiveness that is self-destructive. It consists of reflexively saying "No!" when their interests would be better served by saying "Yes." Their only form of self-assertiveness is protest-whether it makes sense or not. We often see this response among teenagers -and among adults who have never matured beyond this teenage level of consciousness. The intent is to protect their boundaries, which is not wrong intrinsically; but the means they adopt leaves them stuck at an arrested stage of development.

While healthy self-assertiveness requires the ability to say no, it is ultimately tested not by what we are against but by what we are for. A life that consists only of a string of negations is a waste and a tragedy. Self-assertiveness asks that we not only oppose, what we deplore but that we live and express our values. In this respect, it is intimately tied to the issue of integrity.

Self-assertiveness begins with the act of thinking but must not end there. Self-assertiveness entails bringing ourselves into the world. To aspire is not yet self-assertion, or just barely; but to bring our aspirations into reality is. To hold values is not yet self-assertion, or just barely; to pursue them and stand by them in the world is. One of the great self-delusions is to think of oneself as "a valuer" or "an idealist" while not pursuing one's values in reality. To dream one's life away is not self-assertion; to be able to say, at the end, "While my life was happening, I was there, I lived it," is.

2. To practice self-assertiveness logically and consistently is to be committed to my right to exist, which proceeds from the knowledge that my life does not belong to others and that I am not here on earth to live up to someone else's expectations. To many people, this is a terrifying responsibility. It means their life is in their own hands. It means that Mother and Father and other authority figures cannot be counted on as protectors. It means they are responsible for their own existence - and for generating their own sense of security. Not fear of this responsibility but surrender to the fear is a chief contributor to the subversion of self-esteem. If I will not stand up for my right to exist -my right to belong to myself -how can I experience a sense of personal dignity? How can I experience a decent level of self-esteem?

To practice self-assertiveness consistently I need the conviction that my ideas and wants are important. Unfortunately, this conviction is often lacking. When we were young, many of us received signals conveying that what we thought and felt or wanted was not important. We were taught, in effect, "What you want isn't important; what's important is what others want." Perhaps we were intimidated by accusations of "selfishness" when we attempted to stand up for ourselves. It often takes courage to honor what we want and to fight for it. For many people, self-surrender and self-sacrifice are far easier. They do not require the integrity and responsibility that intelligent selfishness requires. A man of forty-eight who has worked hard for many years to support his wife and three children dreams of quitting his demanding and stressful job when he turns fifty and taking a job that will earn less money but that will afford him some of the leisure he has never permitted himself. He has always wanted more time to read, travel, and think, without the pressure of feeling he was neglecting some urgent matter at work. When he announces his intention at a family dinner, everyone becomes agitated and has only a single concern: How will each one's standard of living be affected if he takes a job that pays less money. No one shows interest in his context, needs, or feelings. "How can I stand against my family?" he asks himself. "Isn't a man's first duty to be a good provider?" He wants his family to think he is a good man, and if the price is to relinquish his own yearnings, he is willing to pay it. He does not even have to reflect about it. The habit of duty has been ingrained across a lifetime. In the space of one dinner conversation, he steps across a threshold into the beginning of old age. As a sop to the pain he can not entirely bury, he tells himself, "At least I'm not selfish. Selfishness is evil - isn't it?"

The sad irony is that when people cease to honor or even attend to their deepest needs and wants, they sometimes become selfish not in the noble but in the petty sense, grasping at trivia after they have surrendered their deeper yearnings, rarely even knowing what they have betrayed and given up.

3. Within an organization, self-assertiveness is required not merely to have a good idea but to develop it, fight for it, work to win supporters for it, do everything within one's power to see that it gets translated into reality. It is the lack of this practice that causes so many potential contributions to die before they are born.

As a consultant, when I am asked to work with a team that has difficulty functioning effectively on some project, I often find that one source of the dysfunction is one or more people who do not really participate, do not really put themselves into the undertaking, because of some feeling that they do not have the power to make a difference, do not believe that their contribution can matter. In their passivity they became saboteurs. A project manager remarked to me, ''I'd rather worry about handling some egomaniac who thinks he's the whole project than struggle with some self-doubting but talented individual whose insecurities stop him from kicking in what he's got to offer."

Without appropriate self-assertiveness, we are spectators, not participants. Healthy self-esteem asks that we leap into the arena - that we be willing to get our hands dirty.

4. Finally, self-assertion entails the willingness to confront rather than evade the challenges of life and to strive for mastery. When we expand the boundaries of our ability to cope, we expand self-efficacy and self-respect. When we commit ourselves to new areas of learning, when we take on tasks that stretch us, we raise personal power. We thrust ourselves further into the universe. We assert our existence.

When we are attempting to understand something and we hit a wall, it is an act of self-assertiveness to persevere. When we undertake to acquire new skills, absorb new knowledge. extend the reach of our mind across unfamiliar spaces - when we commit ourselves to moving to a higher level of competence - we are practicing self-assertiveness.

When we learn how to be in an intimate relationship without abandoning our sense of self, when we learn how to be kind without being self-sacrificing, when we learn how to cooperate with others without betraying our standards and convictions, we are practicing self-assertiveness.

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