Improving both spoken and non-verbal assertiveness skills are an important portion of any assertiveness training program. Assertive communication involves conveying your opinions, thoughts and emotions openly, while being considerate of other folks at the same time.

Sometimes, we tend to either be too passive in the way that we express ourselves (i.e. not expressing our feelings in the slightest degree) or get carried away by getting too aggressive (i.e. asserting ourselves inappropriately and without thinking about others). Assertive communication is focused on realizing a suitable compromise between expressing ourselves and taking other people's needs into consideration.

Increasing Spoken Assertiveness Skills

The first thing you have to do is to determine whether you normally communicate passively or aggressively. If you're a passive communicator, what you need to do first is obviously to voice out what you really want to say. The trick is to keep it quick and be direct concerning the message that you would like to convey.

On the other hand, if you tend to be an aggressive communicator you'll need to pay attention to becoming sensitive towards other people's feelings when you express yourself. It would even be a good exercise to ask for sincere remarks regarding your communication abilities from the people around you.

This is what you need to be targeting in terms of verbal assertiveness skills:

- Ensure that your voice is firm but at ease

- Don't speak too fast or slow and use a balanced tone

- Use statements that are "I" focused, for instance, "I want you to " instead of "You should "

- If making a criticism, point out the behavior and how it makes you feel instead of attacking the one who made it happen

- When you're deciding something, ask for other folk's ideas and be receptive to their thoughts

- Make it clear that you're looking for a mutually beneficial solution

Developing Non-Spoken Assertiveness

To make sure of the effectiveness of your assertive communication, you need to support the spoken portion with congruent non-verbal communication at the same time. Otherwise, you'll be sending mixed signals to the people you are communicating with.

Below are a few ideas to guarantee consistency between your verbal and non-verbal communication:

- Maintain eye contact non-threateningly

- Posture your body to face the person you are speaking with

- Appropriate facial expressions, for example, smiling when you are joyful and frowning when you are unhappy

Obviously, you won't be able to merely press a button and learn every one of these spoken and non-verbal assertive communication skills right away. It takes time, and the ideal way to master these freshly learned techniques is with the help of the correct assertiveness training activities.