The Eight Rights You Need to Know About
In order to live your best life
The basis of all assertiveness is rights. Rights are necessary but not sufficient. They don’t guarantee that you will always get your way -– but you have no chance without them. That’s not deep philosophical thought, that’s just logic: if you don’t even think you have a right to say no, or to ask for something you want, or even just to be respected, how will you ever be able to do it?
A lot of our rights are baked into our culture so we take them for granted and may never think about them at all. I have many students from many different cultures, and when they have to write make-up essays I offer them the chance to write about the assertiveness cultural differences they’ve experienced. It’s fascinating but it’s unbelievably tricky, both within and between cultures.
Whatever your particular situation, you can always benefit from looking at the basic list of rights and becoming conscious of which you do accept for yourself. I repeat: any right you reject, you will not be able to defend, for yourself or others. So if you find yourself thinking “no not that one, that’s not a thing,” reflect on it a little. Are you sure?
I have the right to be treated with respect and dignity.
This should go without saying, and applies to every human being, regardless of appearance, gender, wealth, family, or nationality. This is the foundation of all other rights.
Is it always enforceable? The history of humanity suggests not. Your culture, society, and laws should be on your side, but they aren’t always, unfortunately. Therefore you yourself must believe in your own (and other people’s) right to be treated with respect and dignity, otherwise how can you fight for it?
I have the right to ask for what I want.
Many people are raised in families or cultures where it is forbidden to ask for certain things. Perhaps we wanted help, or affection, or a second helping at the dinner table, but couldn’t ask for one reason or another. Or perhaps the entire culture banned something. For example, I have heard from old GDR people that no one could ask for time alone for its own sake. There had to be a sound Communist reason for wanting to be alone — a pamphlet to be studied, for example.
Whether it’s something small or something huge — like love — If you don’t feel entitled to ask for the things you want and need it can blight your whole life.
I have the right to say no
An entire book has been written on this one topic.
Feeling guilty about saying no is, at times, unavoidable. But you can choose whether or not to allow your guilt to be the determining factor. You can choose to live with the guilt. Sometimes it’s worth it, sometimes it’s not.
For example, breaking up with someone when you know there’s no future in the relationship can cause a lot of guilt, but guilt now is better than a messy divorce later. You may like your boss, but would you give up a better job because you’d feel guilty about abandoning him?
Rationality has never been a 100% remedy for guilt, but it can help.
I have the right to be the primary judge of my own behavior, thoughts, and emotions
Everything you do or think will be disapproved of by somebody somewhere. If you’re going to have to choose a judge; why shouldn’t it be you?
This doesn’t mean you never need to listen to another opinion or allow yourself to be influenced. We need to listen and then use reason to make our own judgement. It’s a right, it’s a responsibility, and it’s essential to a happy life.
(I hope it’s clear that I am talking about behavior within the limits of the law.)
I have the right to have negative feelings.
Negative feelings are part of being human. Banning emotion is as useless as banning hunger, or a full bladder. Everyone has felt, at some time, angry, sad, frustrated, needy, etc. But many systems can only stay stable by suppressing negative emotions. Some families cannot tolerate anger, or sadness, so family members feel guilty or even evil for having them at all. Professional environments often simply ignore human emotion; they aren’t set up to cope with it, so it mustn’t exist. Of course to survive in such environments, you do what’s necessary. But if you want to stay human, you must give yourself permission to have the emotions. If the system you are in crushes emotion, there’s no point aiding and abetting.
In turn, other people are entitled to their feelings. If you reject your own negative feelings, it’s much harder to tolerate them in others. If you hate to see people cry, chances are pretty good that you are proud of being a person who never cries.
Please note: I am talking about feelings, not behaviors. Everyone has a right to be angry. No one has a right to hit someone just because they are angry.
I have the right to have positive feelings
You also have a right to feel joyful or contented or confident — even when others are miserable. If you’ve grown up in a household where someone was depressed, you may feel guilty or even angry about joy. And there are billions of people suffering in the world. What kind of a monster can be happy in this sea of pain?
Nonetheless, as with negative feelings, you can’t control joy either. You can feel guilty and reject it, but does that help others who are suffering? There’s always someone who has it worse (just like there’s always someone who has it better). When you accept joy and contentment and allow yourself to celebrate life, you are in a better position to help others. The more you have, the more you have to give.
I have the right to express my feelings appropriately
Feelings are messy. It’s not always easy to find the right words, and even when you do it can be hard to say them (calmly). A lot of people, understandably, just give up. Especially at work, where there’s always the danger of being labelled strange or difficult.
And…there are times when you will not get what you want out of life if you don’t find an appropriate way to express your feelings. It’s a right worth having and a skill worth developing. In a future article I will discuss sharing feelings as an actual assertiveness technique, one that can be quite powerful if it’s done right.
For now, just observe. Where do you allow yourself this right, and where do you resist it? Are you losing out somewhere because you don’t believe in this right?
I have the right not to be liked.
Anyone who wants to be in a leadership role has to embrace this right. It is impossible for a leader to be liked by everyone. Leaders have to make choices and set boundaries. Boundaries restrict people, and people resent restriction. This is also why parents can’t always be liked by their children.
The best cure for fear of dislike is assertiveness itself, or to put it another way, courage. Get out there and say what you want, even if your voice is shaking and you know the other person will be mad, and see what happens. Once you do it and survive and cope with the consequences, you will realize that while being disliked is unpleasant, that’s usually all it is: unpleasant.
Once, many years ago, back when I was a very unassertive little mouse, and bosses got away with a lot more, my boss tried to bully me into going out with him socially. I realized that if I said yes it was only going to get worse and worse, so I said no, and boy was that hard. I did it with tears in my eyes, which meant I had to repeat myself, because he didn’t believe me the first time. The atmosphere in the office was very angry and punitive for a week at least (it seemed longer). And…I survived. He got over it. And he never asked again.
Whew…you got through the first batch!
If you find that you have difficulty with one of these basic rights, that one has energy for you. That’s the one for you to meditate on. What bothers you about it? Is it going to force you into conflict you don’t want? For example, it can be painful to realize that someone in your life has gotten into a bad habit of treating you with disrespect or contempt, but everybody — you and they — are used to it and it would be awkward to ask for changes at this point.
Another example is when there is someone in your life whom you admire and want to impress. This can give them a lot of influence over you, and it can be disappointing and deflating to take that power back.
My next article will finish up the list of assertiveness rights. Until then, let these simmer and see which ones are liberating and which ones are anxiety-provoking. That’s change energy!
My previous articles:
