How to become more confident and assertive at work and in life
Larry Cornett 🌲
Coach & Fractional Leader | Career, Leadership, Business, & Life | Are you ready to reclaim your freedom, confidence, & future? | Formerly Apple, IBM, eBay, Yahoo | Psychologist | Solopreneur | Powerlifter | Trail runner
It’s nice to be nice, except when it isn’t
Many of us seek to be liked by others. It’s human nature to want to belong and to be welcomed by the tribe. Long ago, those who were not welcome were banished and often perished. So, it’s perhaps not surprising that we often strive to be agreeable.
But, this trait of agreeableness doesn’t do much for your career, and it may even hurt you personally. It’s difficult to get what you want in life if you’re not assertive. Those who are too agreeable often earn less, for example. People tend to treat you like a pushover, and then you end up frustrated and confused about your lack of progress.
I enjoy making people laugh. Probably too much. In another life, I might have become a standup comic, like Sarah Cooper. It probably stems from wanting to be liked. I know that I was too agreeable when I was younger.
I started losing that as I grew older. I wanted to achieve certain things in my life and career, and that meant that I had to take the bull by the horns and go after it. That also meant that I needed to be more direct in my relationships, firm with my requests, learn how to negotiate better, and know where my line was.
There are times that you can’t take “no” for an answer. If a situation will simply not work out for you, despite all attempts at negotiation, you have to be ready to walk away. Really walk away. Move on to better opportunities.
So, how can you become more assertive? How can you truly improve your self-confidence vs. playing around with a few confidence hacks?
Boost your self-confidence
I often talk with my leadership and career clients about writing the “Story of You.” I ask them to do this because we sometimes forget everything we have accomplished. All of the great things we have achieved in our lives, big and small.
We’ve all been on a more amazing journey than we realize. We’ve had life experiences that we have mostly forgotten or taken for granted. We’ve accomplished things that we no longer feel are worth mentioning.
Yes, there are always things you can do to further develop your confidence (e.g., improving your health and fitness, acquiring new skills, constantly educating yourself). But, writing the Story of You will immediately elevate your confidence because it captures the decades of accomplishments and work you’ve already put in.
Sit down in a quiet place, with your favorite beverage, and start capturing the “Story of You” from the beginning. It often helps to talk with friends and loved ones who have known you since you were very young. They will remember achievements, strengths, and talents that you have forgotten or don’t notice.
This process will take some time. You can’t write the story of your decades-long life in one session. But, get started and keep updating it over the next few weeks or months. Documenting your life is a surprising confidence builder.
Invest in your health
Speaking of health and fitness, it is easy to overlook the effect they have on your sense of confidence. We all accept that being healthy and fit are important, but I don’t think many of us connect that with how assertive we feel that we can be at work.
I let my own health slide during the decades of my corporate career in Silicon Valley. One year I finally had enough and began a mission to recover my fitness, which is a little more challenging after 40. I lost over 40 lbs, became even stronger and healthier than I’d been in my 20s, and I’ve maintained that lifestyle for the past 11 years.
I have more energy every day, feel better overall, look better, and it impacts how I carry myself. I wasn’t anticipating that I would start acting more assertive and confident in almost every situation. But, I did. It was an unexpected benefit, but a very valuable one.
This isn’t just a personal observation. Research has found that physical activity can positively impact self-esteem, reduce stress, improve brain function, increase assertiveness (perhaps due to improved perception of body image), and more. Clearly, exercise and healthy eating have numerous physiological benefits. But, it is also becoming more clear that you can boost your self-confidence and assertiveness with increased physical activity as well.
Banish your impostor syndrome
I wrote a full story about how I overcame my own Impostor Syndrome. It basically boiled down to me setting aside the labels that the world had imposed on me and digging deep to identify my own core truths. I set myself free from the layers of “camouflage and defense” that we tend to build up to protect ourselves from being hurt.
Face yourself head on, look deep inside, and think long and hard about who you really are. Not who you wanted to be, or thought you should be. Not who you may have aspired to be, or even pretended to be. Not the layers upon layers of your identity that you’ve developed since childhood.
Stop defining yourself by who you think you should be, or the expectations that others have placed on you. Stop letting yourself be judged by talents and skills that you secretly feel you don’t really have. Instead, center yourself on the deep truths that have been core to who you are for as long as you can remember. Your truths will reveal themselves as consistent threads that keep cropping up in how you work, live, and interact with others. Center yourself on who you truly are.
The key point is that the core truths about yourself aren’t generated by someone else’s recognition or praise. They can’t be taken away by someone else’s criticism either. Failure doesn’t affect them. Discard the labels and assessments being used to try to measure you by what you really are not. You can’t be revealed as an impostor for something you no longer define yourself as being. It is incredibly liberating.
Once you identify your core truths, own them, and base your identity upon them, you can no longer experience impostor syndrome and that enables you to be incredibly confident and assertive about what you want and deserve in life.
Be aware of how you speak
Many people use hedging phrases and unnecessary qualifiers in their communication, myself included. I think we naturally try to soften the request or demand. We think that these phrases build rapport, when in fact they simply make us look uncertain and weak.
I’m sure you are familiar with a few of these:
- “I think…”
- “I feel like…”
- “It would be great if…”
- “I should be able to…”
- “Basically…”
- “Honestly…”
- “Apparently…”
Plus, we tend to sprinkle our conversation with any number of verbal tics and vocal fillers such as:
- “Ummm…”
- “Like…”
- “Soooo…”
- “…you know?”
- “…right?”
You’ll have a better chance of identifying these issues if you speak more slowly, and give yourself more time to think. We tend to speak quickly when we are nervous, so slowing down is helpful regardless. Make powerful use of silence when you want to pause and resist the urge to fill the gap with an “Ummmm.”
I know that it is hard to be fully aware of your own speaking style and issues. You can record yourself speaking, and I highly encourage that you do this with video. That will allow you to simultaneously assess your verbal tics and fillers, as well as your body language, which I bring up in the next section.
You can also ask a trusted friend or loved one to give you feedback. Be prepared for this and keep an open mind. It’s not easy hearing about the speaking issues undermining your perceived confidence. But, identifying and overcoming them with practice will help you become more confident and assertive later.
Notice how you behave
So many people appear to lack self-confidence because they act uncertain and uncomfortable in conversational situations. Amy Cuddy’s research on body language talks about how the “power pose” can boost feelings of confidence. While the validity and replicability of this research have been debated, there is no doubt that your body language does in fact impact how others perceive your confidence (and more).
This body language can include how you stand, your posture, where you place your hands, and how you move while you speak. But, it also includes something as simple as eye contact. I’ve written about the power of eye contact before. In general, good eye contact may make you seem more confident, likable, attractive, trustworthy, attentive, and memorable.
Given this impact, it is a real shame that fewer people are looking each other in the eye during conversations, but I think we’ve all noticed that trend. Eye contact should be made about 60–70% of the time during a discussion to create a sense of emotional connection, yet we are only doing it 30–60% of the time. Knowing this, you can make an active effort to increase your eye contact with others while you’re speaking and immediately improve your appearance — and feeling — of self-confidence and assertiveness.
Have clear goals in mind
What do you want? What do you really, really want? Things aren’t going to end well if you go into a discussion or negotiation with a fuzzy outcome in mind. This is especially true if you’re an introvert. We don’t feel comfortable just winging it during a critical meeting. We need time to prepare and collect our thoughts, which helps us feel more confident during a discussion.
Create a specific and structured request for the outcome you desire. Nothing makes someone look less confident than not being able to clearly answer, “What do you want?” I’ve been in entirely too many meetings with frustrated executives listening to rambling requests. Eventually one would say something like. “Stop. Just stop. What in the hell are you asking me to do?”
You should also be prepared with a clear and supported justification for your request. Research shows that simply adding a “because” statement to a request greatly increases the likelihood that someone will grant your request. Some examples from their findings:
- “Excuse me, I have 5 pages. May I use the xerox machine?” (60% compliance)
- “Excuse me, I have 5 pages. May I use the xerox machine, because I have to make copies?” (93% compliance)
- “Excuse me, I have 5 pages. May I use the xerox machine, because I’m in a rush?” (94% compliance)
This can be as easy as changing your request from “I need to take Friday off” to “I need to take Friday off because my mother will be in town.”
Clearly, you don’t have to overdo it with your justification. You don’t need to create a long list of reasons. Pick your top three that will have the most impact. Have others ready if you need to tap into them during the negotiation.
It also helps to visualize a positive outcome. See yourself being confident, assertive, and achieving your goals.
“Two reasons for visualizing are to recognize what you want when you see it and so you’re ready for the situation or result when it shows up.”
Know what you’re willing to concede
Create a list of what you absolutely require long before going into any discussion or negotiation. This ties back into the clear goals you have in mind before the meeting. You want to know exactly what it is you are asking for before the conversation starts flowing.
Then, add items to the negotiation list to sweeten the deal for yourself. For example, you know that you want a 10% raise and will settle for nothing less. But, a 15% raise would certainly be nice and not out of the question. Start there with your negotiation, knowing in the back of your mind that you are willing to concede that extra 5%.
It helps to visualize two buckets for your requests. One bucket is for your foundational request. These are the must-have items. The ones you can’t walk away without. The other bucket is for your nice-to-have items. These are the ones that you are willing to concede, if necessary.
If you don’t clearly identify these two different buckets, it is too easy to get flustered and caught up in the heat of the debate and lose ground on something that is critical for you. You have to know where you want to draw the line in the sand.
Establish where your line is
Yes, concessions are fine and normal. But, you’d better have a line. When you don’t, you walk away disappointed every time. The more aggressive individual will push you back past that line. It’s the nature of debate and negotiation. The more confident and assertive person will keep pushing for the biggest win.
Some say that you should never have a “walk away” point, but I disagree. For example, I’ve found that my career advanced the most when I knew my line during promotion discussions and offer negotiations. I knew what was acceptable for my next move (e.g., role, title, compensation) and what fell beneath the line.
It would have been easy to become flustered when someone offered a much larger signing bonus for a role that simply wasn’t the level that I wanted for my next move. Who doesn’t like more money? But, I had already established my walk away point when I was feeling very calm, rational, and planning out my future career path. That made it more of an objective, quantitative decision.
My hard line is X on this must-have item. They refuse to offer more than X-1, therefore I say, “Thank you for the offer, but I know that I should have X and I have clearly justified X. I’m going to decline and accept an offer from company ABC who is offering me X+1.”
Face your worst fears
Identify the worst case scenario. What happens when you are confident, push back, and you don’t get what you want? What happens if you’re assertive and it blows up in your face?
Those fears are what has held you back in the past. Those fears have eroded your confidence and kept you from being more assertive. Identify them, face them, and create your contingency plan.
If I do x, they do y, and z happens, then I’m going to do this and it will be ok. I always have a backup plan for a potential failure. It reduces the initial shock if and when failure does occur (e.g., I anticipated this might happen). Plus, it helps you fall back to your Plan B and quickly recover.
Another powerful exercise is to face down your worst fears that may or may not have anything to do with your professional life. Conquering a fear of public speaking will help you both professionally and personally of course. But, conquering a fear of heights by taking a skydiving lesson probably doesn’t have much to do with your professional life.
Yet, conquering any fear and becoming stronger, no matter what it is, will contribute to your overall sense of empowerment and self-confidence. Being assertive in a meeting will seem like nothing after you’ve jumped out of an airplane and survived. In fact, many of the things that seemed so overwhelming and stressful before may now seem like trivial issues.
Enjoy your new level of confidence
I must admit that I’m sometimes surprised by the level of confidence I feel at this point in my life. Maybe it’s partly due to growing older. Maybe it’s also partly due to my newfound physical health and strength. And, maybe it has something to do with tapping out of my old career path and creating my own business.
But, more than anything I know that it is because I have accepted who I am and who I will never, ever be. I’ve made peace with that. I’ve stopped feeling like an impostor. I know what I’m good at doing — really good at doing — and I focus my energy there. I’ve stopped trying to be anything that I am not, and I’m brutally honest about what I’m not good at doing.
Once you have identified your core truths and strengths, you can claim them and own them. You deserve to feel confident about them. Knowing that and using the techniques I’ve discussed here, you can move forward with becoming more assertive about what you want and deserve both professionally and personally in life.