Being Assertive Helps Protect One’s Rights

Assertiveness is one of the social skills we sometimes give up to avoid causing a conflict. There are also those who renounce it because they don’t know how to be assertive. We have already lost this practice that we had naturally when we were little and now we have a huge difficulty in defending our own rights.

However, assertiveness is necessary if we are to develop in the social world without getting hurt. If this is not the case, it is likely that we will end up being victims of many abuses that make us suffer and that we do not know how to cut them off.

Therefore, this article is dedicated to enumerating the main rights that it is possible to defend when being assertive. Rights that others have a tendency to restrict, that no one but ourselves allows.

Right to be our own judge/court

This right allows you to have your own opinions and defend them. Furthermore, it makes it possible for others not to judge or frighten you for it. Even by making use of this right, you can support these opinions/judgments regardless of what the majority says or what the majority finds acceptable.

At the same time, behind this right there is a motivation and an unease. The motivation is to achieve coherence in our own opinions, thus articulating a belief system. The malaise in this sense appears when we detect a dissonance and we cannot solve it in a simple way: like people who think that cigarettes are bad for their health and smoke, or like people who give in and then do not stop being tormented by the concession they made.

With this right you can judge what you are and what you do and make your behavior follow your ideas and not those of others. In addition, you will be the one to establish the reference and comparison points, as well as who chooses the height at which to place the bar you want to jump.

Following Smith, we can highlight some strands of thought, reflected in words, that can sabotage the defense of this right:

• “If I cannot convince others of the consistency of my aspirations, it will be because I am wrong or because my wishes are far from acceptable.”
• “You have to keep discrepancies to yourself: my mission is to listen and learn.”

Right to choose whether we want to be responsible for problems that are not ours

Our responsibility obligations are to take care of ourselves and our children, if we have them. As for the rest of the responsibilities, we can assume them or not according to our own criteria, and no one should judge us for that.

We may or may not lend a hand to the co-worker if he is in trouble, but in any case it is not our own obligation, unless it is stated in the contract or we have previously committed to adopting this role. This right allows us to expose our interests to others and that, in doing so, we receive the recognition of taking care of the interests of others because it is in no way our own obligation.

In this sense, there are people who are true experts in compromising/trying to restrict this right. Think of the child who leaves the room in a mess knowing that his mother will not be long in putting him in order; think of the co-worker who asks the other for help and then blames him for the mistakes that may exist in the result.

Right to demand explanations from us

This right is more present in couples. There are people who give explanations that they would like to be silent, just out of fear of the other person’s irritation or because they feel it is their duty.

In this sense, explanations are a sign of courtesy that we may or may not apply. Nobody has any reason to know what we do and how we do it. In fact, this is a right that every accused has in a formal trial.

On the other hand, sometimes someone can ask us for an explanation. In fact, many jealous people constantly reiterate this petition looking for security. However, we need to know that there is nothing that ultimately obliges us to give them, however annoying and insistent the person asking or even, in some cases, demanding.

In this sense, we ourselves have the power to choose what we share with others. This is wonderful because it gives us the possibility to manage our own intimacy.

Being assertive also protects the following rights.

Here we describe some of the most important rights we can defend by being assertive, but there are other rights that also stand out for their importance. They are as follows:

• Right to change your mind.
• Right to make mistakes.
• Right to say “I don’t know”.
• Right not to need approval from others.
• Right to choose alternatives that are not logical, consistent or consistent with the majority.
• Right not to understand or meet the expectations of others.
• Right not to try to achieve perfection.

Violating each of these rights is a very big temptation for the people around us, whether consciously or unconsciously. However, it is necessary to be assertive without losing education to defend them.