There’s a weird line between aggression and assertiveness that some folks have difficulty negotiating.

People who conflate the two tend to be either way less assertive or way more aggressive. Neither of these is any good for you or the people around you.

Let’s use an example.

When a client asks you to make more edits on your project:

The Non-Assertive: “Yes.”

The Assertive: “Yes, I can do that extra work for $xx.xx”

The Aggressive: “No, and don’t reach out to me again.”

The Passive-Aggressive: “I don’t have to do this on other projects.”

Here are some commonly held

Where do you fall?

If you’re not sure, it may help yo use this reference guide from the Assertiveness Handbook. You can download this to your computer or GDrive from this link.

The Punchline:

The Assertive style defends your rights without overstepping others’.

This successfully helps you treat people with respect while also treating yourself with respect.

2 Minute Action You Can Take Right Now

Here are 2 ways you can spend 2 minutes improving:

Read the Handbook for 2 minutes.

Reply or comment here to let me know where you think you are in the battle.

Pro Tips:

I revisit this document several times a year.

If you are like me, you may need to read it a few times to really internalize it. I recommend setting iOS or Google Calendar reminders to do so. You’re more likely to take action if you have outlined a time and a place to do it.

Once you’ve got the basics down, it’s a great reference document when you find yourself in unfamiliar situations.

I hope this benefits you as much as it’s benefitted me.

For more tools and resources like this, you can check out the Resources page to see the personal VAULT of resources I’ve been putting together for over 10 years.

Please consider thinking of someone else who needs to read this and sharing this resource with them. The more we lift each other up, the further we will go together.