After doing some thinking and reviewing events in recent years, I've realized that the one thing I hate about myself the most is my inability to stand up for myself. I tend to be unassertive and keep my opinions to myself just for the sake of looking "nice" or "polite." Sometimes I make politeness or pleasing others, a priority over pleasing myself! I've made some threads on this board before about issues in my personal life, and a lot of people here said that I have big unassertiveness issues, I'm a doormat, people use me, etc. Those words have really kinda hurt, but they are also the truth and honestly, I deserved to hear that criticism. This unassertiveness problem has affected many facets of my life in VERY negative ways: hustling in the strip club, getting passed over for raises/promotions at jobs, not being understood by my parents, getting cut off on the road by other cars, people invading my personal space, so-called "friends" using me for rides, the list goes on. I've found that the only time I can really voice my opinions or rightfully tell someone off, is if it is on the phone, on the computer, or shouting mean curse words at crappy drivers while I'm in my car because I know they can't hear me...basically I can't tell people stuff to their face.
I really really want to become more assertive and start seizing my own life back from these assholes that either step all over me or neglect to look out for my best interests. How do I go about doing this? Should I "start small" as the very unassertive Mike Nobody told me to do, or should I say "fuck it" and all-at-once start demanding things back from the people who I've never been able to stand up to before? What is a good happy medium with assertiveness, and how do I go about finding this happy medium?(sometimes if I feel that I'm too unassertive, I'll go overboard and come off as an inappropriate asshole; a hypothetical example is stabbing someone who punched me last week) Also...should I ditch the "friends" who've taken slight advantage of my unassertiveness before and start fresh with a new group of friends?(i.e., people who don't know about my past weakness) Or, is it possible to change my ways and truly convince people that I'm a changed person? I do not want people to forever view me as a doormat just because I was a doormat when they first met me...is this likely to occur though?
Thanks for all the replies. I really want to change this. It's my resolution for my 24th birthday.


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