In order to become successful in life you must be willing to assert yourself. The ability to be assertive is very important because it allows us to make your intentions known and well understood. Without this ability you end up being dominated by others and by the environment around you.

Assertiveness is usually a tricky topic because it can be seen by some as being overtly forceful or in some ways manipulative. Assertiveness though is positive action manifesting itself through strong personal intention. In order to be assertive in a truly positive way, you must learn to listen to others. The reason for this is that true assertiveness is the natural impulse of a strong personality to act and to make its intent palpable. This type of assertiveness is not scared of listening and contemplating the opinions of others because it is not competing and therefore is not worried that it will somehow be overcome.

While it is not competing, true assertiveness does want to create and creation requires power and focus. This can only be achieved through strength of character and personal understanding. Assertiveness means expressing your “I”self. To be truly assertive you need to understand yourself as a separate individual with his or her own desires and needs. Do not be afraid therefore to let others know what you think and what you want and to clearly begin any phrase with, “I believe…”. It takes more strength than most people realize to put yourself on the line and to make your points heard. Assertiveness starts by developing the courage and the personal understanding to be able to do this.

In order to be more assertive you must be able to make your points understood. In order to do this always practice communicating in an articulate and concise manner. Always try to stick to the most important points to make these points as clearly understood as possible.

A person that is assertive sometimes needs to criticize the work of others. As I said being assertive means being very clear about what you want and being strong enough to assert these intentions to others. When you do this you will run across individuals that will not do things within your standards. If this is the case then you will need to criticize their actions so that they know what they’re doing wrong and also how to do things properly from then on. When you to criticize others try to criticize their actions and not their character. In this way you will separate the action from the doer and will find it much easier to get people to change in order to better suit your needs.

In order to be assertive you must be able to dominate your space. All assertion and an assertive personality is very much different from being a bully, it is the case that the person who is assertive must learn to use the power of his or her body language. A good distinction between assertiveness and bullying is that while assertion stands firm bullying tries to force. This is a great clue as to how you should maintain your body language; you do not want to lean forward or make any overtly aggressive gestures. What you should do instead is to try and take up your space, stand tall and centered and stay firm in your position, in this way you are able to give orders and to make your point. These orders are followed and this point is listen to because of the strength of your personal character and not because the other person feels threatened in any way.

Being assertive is the ability to say no. Never commit yourself to anything that you don’t want to commit yourself to. Say no with assurance and with personal strength. If you understand yourself and your desires then you will know what you want and what you don’t want. If you are being led in one way or another into something that you do not want to do, then you need to say no with complete and total strength of character.

To be assertive is not to be a bully. To be assertive is to understand your personal being, to understand your motivations, and to understand your values. Knowing yourself implicitly you then developed the force necessary to stand by these values. Assertiveness then is the ability to stand by your values and to not compromise on anything in your life. True success can only be achieved through assertiveness because it is this assertive power that will create the control necessary to accomplish your will.