Guided Learning: Standing up for yourself

Content & How to use

For teamwork to be balanced, every team member should be able to voice his or her opinion and thoughts on what needs to be done. If standing up for yourself is not in your nature, follow this guide to improve your assertiveness skills. This guide starts with an exercise to show you what assertiveness is. Next, a video is provided in which you find easy tricks to start being more assertive and less hesitant. Lastly, a hand-out provides a final overview with tips about being assertive.

1. Skill practice recognising aggressive, assertive and passive behaviours

This exercise shows you if you can correctly tell the difference between agressive, assertive and passive behaviours. Once you know the difference, it is easier to develop your assertiveness skill. Try the exercise here.

2. Being assertive

If being assertive does not come naturally to you, you should order your thoughts first. You should be aware of what you want to achieve by being assertive and why it is important for you to achieve this skill. This video explains why that is important to you, and how you can practice your assertiveness.

3. Hand-out about assertiveness

Now that it is clear to you what assertiveness exactly is and how you can practice to achieve this skill, it is useful to read through the following hand-out. This hand-out breaks down agressive, assertive and passive behavior into verbal, non-verbal and emotional aspects. Moreover, it teaches you how to make a request or refuse to do something that you do not want to do, since that can be a difficult task for you if being assertive is new to you.  Read the hand-out here.