Being Assertive with Emotional Intelligence

Are you tired of holding back in conversations?

Are you fed up of people taking advantage of you?

Perhaps you find it difficult to remain composed when someone frustrates you?

If you don’t speak up for yourself, refuse to make decisions, or let others dictate your actions – people start to view you as a bit of a pushover, or someone who lacks confidence – neither of these are advantageous, especially in the workplace.

Often, it’s easier for you to swallow your feelings, shout at someone or give them the silent treatment.  But assertiveness is a much better strategy.

We’ve all had moments when we’ve failed to speak up for ourselves and said “yes” when we really wanted to say no.

No matter how confident you are, most of us wonder if perhaps we couldn’t be just a bit more assertive in certain situations.

Luckily, assertiveness is a learned ability.  It’s learned through practice.

Whatever your reasons for wanting to become more assertive, in this course you can explore basic skills and strategies to improve your assertiveness and develop your emotional intelligence.

This course will provide you with the knowledge, skills and confidence to become more assertive, taking control of your life in the process.

Your assertiveness is your ability to express your feelings, beliefs, and thoughts and defend your rights in a non-destructive way. It involves effectively and constructively expressing your emotions so that you can be forthright and frank when putting your views across.

Your assertiveness considers how far you will go to stand up your rights for what you perceive is right.  Assertiveness and aggression are two very different things although the two qualities are often somewhat confused.  Aggression involves hostile acts or feelings whereas assertiveness is your confidence in being able to show determination with persistence and constructively argue your own views in a calm and positive way.

If you are not naturally assertive, it can take some effort, but being more assertive is not impossible. For this to work you must approach them with an open mind and be ready to put into practice what you learn.

Use this course to help you boost your assertiveness.  You can work through the entire course, or, because we all have busy lives, you have the option to go straight to particular skills you’d like to work on.

Completing this course, you’ll be able to

• Define everyone’s rights and responsibilities around being assertive

• Differentiate between passive, aggressive and assertive behaviour

• Recognise the implications of passive, aggressive and assertive behaviour, and passive-aggressive behaviour

• Identify methods and techniques to express assertive behaviour effectively

• Explore how to be assertive in appropriate ways

• Explain some ways to say “No” without feeling guilty

• State the rules of assertiveness

• Develop ways to improve your level of assertiveness

This course is a standalone course for anyone interested in understanding how to manage, work with and use assertiveness.  It compliments other courses that explore emotional intelligence in more depth.

You’ll receive all the information that you need and will be coached using loads of practical hints that you can use straight away.

The course is made up of a series of lectures and a series of interactive exercises that involve some activity with other people and some reflection.

PLEASE NOTE – This course is NOT for you if you are not prepared to work through the exercises that make up a fundamental part of the course.  Assertiveness cannot be developed just by watching the video lectures.  It requires you to do some reflective thinking, to get some feedback and to discuss your development with others.  I’m afraid that you won’t get the best from the course unless you are prepared to do this.

This course is being continually refined and updated to ensure it remains current and relevant.

All PDFs can be completed online and are Section 508 / ADA Accessibility compliant.

All videos are high definition recorded in 1080p.

All videos have grammatically correct English captions.

Latest update – February 2023

Who this course is for:

• Anyone fed up of having people take advantage of them.
• Anyone tired of holding back in conversations.
• Anyone with a quick temper who finds other people infuriating.
• Anyone who has difficulty protecting their time, priorities and goals.
• Anyone who’d like to learn a more about what assertiveness actually is, how to use it, and how to apply it.