3 Keys To Having Assertive Communication In Your Relationships

Assertive communication is one in which opinions are expressed or needs and disagreements are expressed in a respectful, honest, clear, direct, safe, calm and empathetic way, so that no one feels offended.

On many occasions, especially when we argue with someone, we tend to get carried away by anger, for those feelings of rage and anger that invade us and make us lose control of the situation. We can lose our “forms”, speaking to the person in front of us in an aggressive, disrespectful manner, sometimes even disrespecting them. We neglect our language by raising our voices, not listening to the other’s opinion or clearly exposing the message we want to convey.

We also lose control of non-verbal language, looking contemptuously, gesturing aggressively and even positioning our body in such a way that the other person has the feeling that we have no interest in continuing the conversation. All these ways of acting only awaken the desire to argue and defend oneself from an attack. This is far from achieving a gesture of empathy in the other person and a possible change in the face of an attitude or behavior that has made us feel bad.

In this article I will give you some tools so that you can learn to express yourself correctly and assertively so that you improve your interpersonal relationships.

Keys to benefit from assertive communication in relationships

First of all, it is necessary to take into account that Behind anger, there is usually a feeling of sadness, hopelessness or disappointment It is from here that we must communicate. If we do it out of anger, it is much more likely that we will not get the attention of the person with whom we are arguing and we will provoke that need to defend ourselves and not to understand what you want to convey.

If we take into account that we are angry with this person because they have hurt us or disappointed us in some way, we will see that the way of transmitting the message is very different and generates much more impact. Have you ever been so angry that in the middle of an argument you started crying and broke down feeling defeated and vulnerable? There you have proof that behind all anger, there is pain.

I leave you some guidelines that can help you communicate assertively:

1. Be clear about the objective you want to achieve from communication

Focus on him and don’t get carried away by reproaches or by the need to respond to the other person’s attacks. If, for example, I want to make them understand that it has bothered me that they did not take my opinion into account for something specific, my goal should be to get the person to empathize with me and apologize. Anything that goes against achieving it, I must ignore.

In this way, we will avoid entering into past reproaches, which are not the current reason why there is an argument, and you will not risk losing sight of what you wanted to achieve, also avoiding each person leaving without having managed to solve the problem. and you feel frustrated.

2. Start the speech from positivity

Despite feeling angry, always start communication by expressing to the other person the positive qualities that characterize them and the reasons why you have decided to make them part of your life. It is important, before explaining what has bothered you or what you need to change, that you let the other person know that they are important to you and that their decisions or opinions affect you especially because of the important place it occupies in your life.

In the case of a discussion with someone with whom there is no more intimate emotional bond, such as a co-worker, your boss… you can express it in another way. We will see a couple of examples:

In this way, we will ensure that the person with whom we start the conversation is more willing to listen to us, since, far from feeling attacked, they will observe in us a conciliatory and trusting attitude.

3. Be careful with non-verbal language

It is important, so that there is respect in communication, Have both people face each other , without making violent movements and with a fixed but conciliatory gaze and predisposed to dialogue. We must try not to look at our cell phone while they talk to us or sit sideways showing disinterest.

These and many other strategies are essential to learn to communicate correctly and resolve any type of conflict in a conciliatory way. These are some techniques that you can train and put into practice with the help of your trusted psychologist.