How To Stand Up For Yourself Without Being a Jerk

If you've ever told a boss, family member, or friend "No," then you remember how difficult standing up for yourself can be, especially when it requires disappointing someone important to you.

The reason this act is so hard is that it challenges both you and others to abide by a new standard.

People can respond to that challenge by rejecting you and your proposed standard, which hurts.

That's the bad news.

The good news is that you can learn how to stand up for yourself in a way that makes others WANT TO change, which can enrich your relationships.

The best news is that you can access a sense of security that'll make it easier to both communicate your standards AND be OK with any reaction.

In the first half of this session, you'll learn the concepts that'll make it possible to set new standards in your work & personal relationships, including:

• How people naturally adhere to standards others set for them
• Why they secretly want to progress their relationship with you
• How to gracefully communicate your new standard
• How to inspire them to take action
• How to respond when they resist changing
• Why none of this works if you don't know how to take care of yourself

In the second half, we'll apply those concepts by role-playing a common challenge: standing up to your boss.

You'll partner up, with one of you playing an overly demanding boss and the other playing an employee who has to say 'no' to working overtime again.

I'll offer a rough script for each role to follow, which will make it easier to apply the new skills we learned in the first half.

Before the role-playing, I'll lead a brief self-compassion exercise, which will help us access the security needed to stand up for ourselves gracefully.

After each has had the chance to play both roles at least once, we'll come back together to debrief.

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