Assertive Communication: Communicating Your Boundaries

We have been discussing healthy boundaries throughout the last few posts as an act of self-preservation in which you enforce boundaries to help protect yourself.  In our previous blog post about setting healthy boundaries with toxic people, we discussed communicating your boundaries assertively.  You may have noticed that we talk about assertive communication quite a bit and you would be right.  In this post we are going to discuss what assertive communication is, why it is important, and what it looks like.

What is assertive communication?

Assertive communication is a style of communication in which a person stands up for their own needs in a way that is also respectful to other people.  This telling someone what you want/need in a way that is not yelling/screaming, which would be aggressive communication, or in a way that prioritizes the other person’s needs, which would be passive communication.  The goal is to find the happy middle between bullying someone into giving you want you want and allowing other people to walk all over you.

Why is assertive communication important?

The purpose of all communication is to relay a message to another person. In doing so, we want to make sure we are sending messages as efficiently as possible.  In passive communication, you are sending a message that the other person’s needs/wants are of a higher priority than yours. Often in passive communication, the needs/wants of the person are not communicated to the other party at all. If the goal is for that person to recognize your needs/wants, you are not being effective in your communication.

In aggressive communication, you are sending a message that your needs/wants are more important than the other person.  Often in aggressive communication, the needs/wants of the other person are not considered at all.  While it may be more effective in sending the message of your wants/needs, it may not be effective in getting the desired results.  Imagine a person walks up to you and starts yelling and demanding something from you.  How likely are you to give that person what they want?  Maybe you comply in the beginning, but if it continued to happen would you continue to comply?

Most people are most likely to respond to the needs and wants of others if they feel that their needs and wants are also being taken into consideration and respected.  This is why assertive communication is so important. It allows you to make your needs and wants known, while also being open and receptive to the needs and wants of others. This increases the likeliness of finding a middle ground between parties which would lead to a compromise.  It’s a win-win strategy.

What does assertive communication look like?

Constructing an assertive statement can be difficult especially if it is not something that you have done before.  To set the groundwork for assertive communication, we suggest that you:

• Figure out what you would like to tell the other person in advance. Having an idea of what you plan to communicate helps you stay on track during the discussion by reminding yourself of why you started the discussion in the beginning.
• Express your feelings and thoughts calmly. As we mentioned before, the point is to demonstrate respect for yourself and the other person.  When we discuss our feelings and thoughts in an angry or aggressive way, people are more likely to respond in an angry/aggressive way because they will feel attacked.
• Be prepared to walk away. As we mentioned in our previous post, the goal of setting boundaries and assertive communication is to protect yourself.  Sometimes, that means saying “No” and walking away when you need to.

Now that we have laid the ground rules for assertive communication, we are going to tell you how we suggest you craft an assertive statement.  Our model for assertive statements consists of five components:

1) Describe the behavior.

You want to take the time and describe explicitly what was done that made you uncomfortable.  We suggest starting the statements with “When I see…” or “When ______ happened…”.  The goal is to avoid judgment or making assumptions.  If you want someone to change their behavior, you must first be able to describe what exactly it is that you want them to change.

2) Share your thoughts.

We won’t go into the dynamics between thoughts and feelings here (we will save that for another blog post); however, it is important to recognize and express the thoughts you had about the behavior.  We suggest starting this section with statements like “What I think is…” or “That reminded me of when…”.

3) Share your feelings.

It is important to avoid comments that are unclear, such as “I feel like”.  We suggest using actual emotion words such as “worried”, “frustrated”, “reassured”, or “confused”.  This statement might start with “I feel…” or “I felt…”.

4) Suggest an alternative.

Remember, the goal is usually to get the other person to change their behavior.  It is important to express to that person a preferred alternative.  It should be an option that is acceptable to you and also realistic for the other person. Statements could start with “What I would prefer would be…” or “I would rather…”.

5) Identify Consequences.

Part of setting boundaries is communicating those boundaries and what will happen if those boundaries are not respected.  The consequence can be positive or negative, but it needs to be something that you are 100% wiling to follow through.  We do not suggest that the consequence be an threat or an ultimatums as they are often damaging to relationships and contradictory to what you are trying to achieve in assertive communication.  Also, specify a time or deadline.  This sets the expectation and provides an enforcement date/time.

EXAMPLE:

¹“When I tried to discuss my concerns with you, you did not respond.   ² It makes me think that you did not value my opinion. ³I felt frustrated and angry.  ⁴I would rather you acknowledge that you heard me or let me know that it is not a good time to talk.  ⁵I am willing to hold my concerns until a more appropriate time.  If this behavior continues, I will stop discussing my concerns with you.”

As you can see from the example, assertive communication allows you the opportunity to clearly state what you disliked, what you thought and felt about it, what you would prefer, and what you are willing to do about it.  It states your position clearly and then places the ball in the court of the other person to decide if they will or will not respect your position.  Once again, you can only control yourself, you cannot control other people.

As you can also see, assertive communication may not roll of the tongue as easily as other forms of communication.  It is best done when you take the time to construct your statement in advance.  It also takes practice.  We often suggest using this same framework to construct positive statements to make you more comfortable implementing the pieces.

No matter how assertively you communicate yourself, you cannot make another person respect your boundaries.  However, you can walk away knowing you expressed yourself clearly, calmly, and respectfully.