Get Assertive!

About This Course

Are you tired of being intimidated and treated badly by others? Learn specific techniques to become more assertive in all parts of your life. Discover how people manipulate you and how you submit to being a victim. Understand the difference between passive, aggressive, and assertive behaviors, and see how inner dialogues keep people acting in passive ways. Explore ways to change your inner dialogue, such as using affirmations and visualization, creating new labels for yourself and others, and keeping a journal.

Do you think you speak non-assertively? If so, master the skills that will empower you to talk in an assertive manner, including specific verbal techniques and phrases for a variety of situations. Anger and criticism from others are difficult to deal with, so you'll get many tips on how to handle these. And because your body can reflect an inner uncertainty, you'll learn how to use facial expressions, eye contact, gestures, and your voice to reinforce the assertive statements you're making.

You teach people how to treat you through your behaviors as well as your words, and this course will help you understand which behaviors to use with others so they perceive you as being assertive. When you begin to exhibit your new confidence in relationships, people will counter in various ways. You'll learn how to stand firm in the face of this resistance.

Get the assertiveness training you need in order to be more confident and powerful with family members, friends, bosses, co-workers, professionals, service people, and even total strangers. It's your turn to speak up!

About The Instructor

This course includes a knowledgeable and caring instructor who will guide you through your lessons, facilitate discussions, and answer your questions. The instructor for this course will be Vivian Harte.

Vivian Harte has been teaching people how to be more assertive for more than 10 years. She teaches a "Women in Society" class for a large college, and also helps students at a major university learn how to express themselves assertively in the classroom and in the workplace.

Syllabus

A new section of each course starts monthly. If enrolling in a series of two or more courses, please be sure to space the start date for each course at least two months apart.

Week 1

Wednesday - Lesson 01

This first lesson will mark a turning point in your life. You'll begin by measuring your assertiveness quotient, you'll learn about the many surprising consequences of not being assertive, and you'll learn to recognize the different behaviors of passive, aggressive, and assertive people.

Friday - Lesson 02

Before you can begin to act assertively, you need to be able to identify your self-canceling thoughts and change your inner script. In this lesson, you'll learn why you have negative thoughts about yourself and what those could be. I'll share with you several techniques for replacing them with a positive inner script, including visualization, affirmations, storytelling, writing a journal, and creating a collage.

Week 2

Wednesday - Lesson 03

One of the ways non-assertive people lose power is through the use of certain types of language to either gain approval or avoid opposition, criticism or disagreement. Today, you'll learn how to recognize when you're doing this, and you'll discover some simple and painless adjustments to the way you say things that can help you avoid this problem.

Friday - Lesson 04

Now that you've learned what takes your verbal power away, it's time to learn how to be verbally assertive. In this lesson, you'll learn how to make the four types of "I" statements to tell others about yourself, respond to others' requests, ask for cooperation and support, and confront another person. You'll also learn about techniques you can use to deal assertively with people who are angry with you or criticizing you.

Week 3

Wednesday - Lesson 05

Just as an actor perfects the nonverbal aspects of a role, you need to pay attention to the nonverbal nuances in your new assertiveness role. What you'll learn in this lesson is how to use eye contact, facial expressions, voice, body posture, gait and clothes to create an assertive image.

Friday - Lesson 06

In order for you to be most effective, you need to be able to adjust your assertive message to the personality of the person with whom you're communicating and to deal with resistance. In this lesson, we'll study four behavior types and five sensory types to help you understand which assertive approach works best. You'll also find out how to identify resistance in others by observing verbal and nonverbal clues and various methods you can use to handle the resistance you may encounter.

Week 4

Wednesday - Lesson 07

Most people find it extremely challenging to be assertive with close family members. Today, you'll learn about a variety of statements family members use to manipulate you, and you'll discover the most effective ways to respond to each of them. You'll learn how to act assertively with your parents, siblings, and children to build more positive relationships.

Friday - Lesson 08

In this lesson, you'll discover the four different emotional types of people and how they come together as mates. We'll explore the relationships these types have with each other, what problems tend to arise, and how the partners can treat each other differently in order to resolve any problems they may have. You'll also learn guidelines for working out issues with your partner in an assertive but loving manner.

Week 5

Wednesday - Lesson 09

Do you find it difficult to say no to a friend who asks a favor that you don't really want to do? Do you have difficulty having conversations in social situations? If so, you'll really learn a lot from this lesson. I'll show you how to use the assertiveness techniques you've been learning to deal with your friends in a calm but strong manner. Next, you'll learn techniques you can use to open up to other people and carry on interesting conversations.

Friday - Lesson 10

You may approach the thought of being assertive at work with trepidation. However, when supervisors and employees treat each other with respect and act assertively with each other, both happiness on the job and productivity increase. In this lesson, you'll learn how to be assertive during job interviews as well as with your boss and subordinates, what to look for to see if your workplace encourages or discourages assertiveness, and how to advance assertiveness where you work.

Week 6

Wednesday - Lesson 11

Often, you encounter situations in which you deal with people as a consumer. Today, you'll learn how to be assertive with waiters, salespeople, government clerks, doctors, hospital employees, lawyers, and IRS agents. We'll also discuss how to be assertive in everyday situations, such as when a restaurant or movie theater is unbearably cold.

Friday - Lesson 12

So far in this course, you've gained a wealth of knowledge about how to be assertive. You've learned skills and techniques to use with family and friends, as a consumer, and in the workplace and everyday situations. In this closing lesson, you'll learn some situations in which it's better to not be assertive, how to give and receive compliments, and how to be assertive in all parts of your life.

Requirements

Internet access, e-mail, and the Microsoft Internet Explorer or Mozilla Firefox Web browser.