After the Flood: Initiating Assertive Behavior

In my previous article, I described the distinction between assertive behavior and aggressive behavior. The essential difference: Assertive behavior seeks to make one’s ideas and opinions known while respecting the ideas and opinions of others, whereas aggressive behavior focuses primarily on “winning,” regardless of the impact on anyone else.

It’s easy to stereotype aggressive behavior as the exclusive domain of bullies, badgerers, and other bad actors. In fact, though, even the most well-meaning people can edge into aggressive territory whenever a dispute threatens to push their emotions out of control. This reaction to the overwhelm of emotion – which the relationship expert John Gottman refers to as “flooding” – often leaves the person with a Hobson’s choice: Either give in to the urge to lash out (and risk poisoning the air even more) or shut down completely (and risk sweeping the entire matter under the carpet, only to have it reemerge with a vengeance later).

In either of these situations, assertiveness as a response goes by the wayside. Assertive behavior requires a certain clear-headedness, an ability to lay out one’s case in an articulate, rational way despite the emotional charge of the situation – or, as Maggie Kuhn put it, the ability to “speak your mind, even if your voice shakes.”

So if you know that you’re susceptible to flooding, how can you prepare to react more constructively – more assertively – the next time you confront conflict? And is it even possible to “prepare to react”? Isn’t that as much a paradox as “rehearsing improv”?

Well, as with the (seeming) improv paradox, you can “prepare” to deal with a conflict situation not by drafting a specific set of scripted responses but by conditioning your intuitive mind to deal effectively in-the-moment with whatever the situation brings.

One way to do this is to quit thinking of assertiveness only as a reactive behavior that is only applicable to an emotionally charged conflict situation. Framing the issue in this way serves to reinforce your mind’s tendency to associate assertiveness with the flooding response and its accompanying no-win options.

Instead, as a way to reframe your thinking, consider finding opportunities to practice applying the “friendly” side of assertiveness. As described in the website Trans4Mind:

Assertiveness doesn't always wear a serious face; we are also being assertive when we smile, initiate a handshake, start or close a conversation, develop a friendship or relationship, express enthusiasm and happiness, and say "yes."

And, to use another improv concept, you can start thinking of assertiveness as an offer you can initiate in order to start a chain of positive behaviors.