BE ASSERTIVE – be in control

We are put together by a lot of things; some we are breastfed with, some are drilled into us from early on, some we take to heart by the power of experience and some we ignorantly neglect and/or discard. Among the many things we should be: respectful, considered, appreciative, caring, honest, trustworthy and fair; these and many more are character building-blocks telling the world around us who we are; or are not. On top of my list, you ask? Being assertive – and I am not one bit wishy-washy about that.

To me an assertive person is one who is self-assured, confident, and communicative, which automatically creates a healthy level of self-esteem. And all this without any form of aggression, neither physically nor mentally; the ultimate way of being in control.

When we are not assertive in our relationships with people around us, we pretty much let them control us – so we must ask ourselves if that’s what we want. The control balance in our society as a whole or in whatever smaller groups is that there is a heck of a lot more followers than leaders – a huge load more.

But this is not the type of assertiveness I’m looking for; the assertiveness I’m promoting is the assertiveness we can all achieve on a personal level – you and I, seriously.

Walking the dog the other day, I ran into a friend of mine (coached him soccer many years ago). Let’s call him Michael to protect his privacy (though his real name is Alberta Schwartswold and he lives here in Santa Rosa). Unfortunately I have a tendency to talk “parent” to younger-than-me people; Michael got a bit of that. I had heard that he was pursuing a career change and asked him what he was doing about it. He told me that he had submitted an application for a job that he was interested in. He also told me that a friend of his knew the HR person and would put a “good” word in for him, to hopefully make the odds better concerning getting hired. In my grand wisdom I rolled my eyes and shook my head while making that irritating ‘clicking’ sound with my tongue (and in that order).

“Michael, YOU must do the follow up; trust nobody but yourself and YOU go after the HR person or whoever would do the hiring”. One of the things I have somewhat lived by: ‘You want it done well – do it yourself’ (for the most part…)

Applying assertiveness in a situation like this, include submitting the application and then follow up with a phone-call the next day to make sure the application ended up with the person who can do something about it. And then ask when a decision could be expected to come forth, etc. That is being assertive – being in control.

She looked cute and stunning. I thought about how much I would like to invite her on a date – I thought about it a lot. Perhaps I would run into her by chance – and then I’ll ask her out – perhaps. And that would go on forever till she married somebody else – and then I’d go: ‘oh well; can’t win them all’. No you won’t win anything if you don’t assert yourself. 

Life is also about taking chances, so we take one of those chances by approaching her and say: ‘I think you are beautiful and I also think that you are probably a nice and fun person, so I decided to ask if you would go out with me?’ And then you’ll get to know yes or no - on the spot. For the most part you will get ‘sure, that would be nice’ answers more so than you’ll be shot down. The simple reason is that assertiveness shows confidence, and we like people with confidence; and for some of us it’s rather sexy, huh? Being assertive – being in control.

Remember that what I am talking about is assertiveness on our level, as part of a very pleasant personality trait; remember the non-aggressive thing that exists within our kind of assertiveness; that’s the one I’m writing about here.

Being assertive makes us free and confident when we express feelings, opinions and thoughts. We are also considered of the people around us and we control any anger (why be mad at all when you are an assertive individual?) with compromise and ease – as we are confident that it is never a big deal, really.

Can we all become assertive? Of course we can, and of course it takes some work if you are not assertive as is. All forms of improvement call for effort – duh; so does this one.

What I’m concerned, our house must be clean, metaphorically speaking. We must be organized, have our stuff in order to the extent that we feel accomplishment beyond the norm; a satisfaction of a job well done, by our own person, physically and mentally, to what we do in the work-place, how we handle our social life and so forth. We must be respectful and considered and in that regard we must listen to the people around us and appreciate what they say, who and what they are.

Do I find myself assertive? Yes I do. Sometimes I can also be wrong (shocking as that may sound), and in those cases, I make sure that I’m wrong on the top of my lungs; assertiveness on an adorable level, I’d say – nah, not really.

When I was out in the real world (considering my present retirement a world apart – really) I applied many things to become more assertive. I was NEVER late to business meetings or appointments. I found that it showed respect and consideration, which added points to my assertiveness. I also found that people I was meeting who were late, some of them very late (pathetic ignorance working hard), declined in my estimation of them, which made it a lot easier for me to get the (assertive) upper hand during negotiations – true story.

I was always well prepared, and in many cases only got to use perhaps 10% of the knowledge I had gathered. But the other 90% made me feel secure in my approach and asserted more control as it was.

There are so many ways we can gather ammunition to load our assertiveness, simply by being more respectful, considered, appreciative, caring, honest, trustworthy and fair. As we keep activating these items, we find that we actually improve the way we feel about ourselves, coming from that wonderful feeling of being respectful, considered, appreciative, caring, honest, trustworthy and fair – just to name a few.

Assertive behavior has a lot to do with what we do and how we do it. We cannot sit there and wait for ‘things to happen’, because those ‘things’ will rarely happen the way we want them to and especially when we want them to. So we must take care of ourselves and MAKE things happen, by being assertive and therefore being in control.

Now go do it, okay?

PS. For those of you who know soccer a bit; one of my (many) issues during my coaching-life was that when a teammate passed the ball to you, you NEVER waited for the ball – you should ALWAYS move towards the ball (yes, I used to call it ‘meatball’). If we don’t move towards our goals, somebody will for the most part intercept – get in between and take it away. Assertiveness in a nutshell – don’t you think?

PROMISES – and then we break them

We might not live in the Promised Land, but we do live in the land of promises, where vast quantities of said promises are broken at about the same rate we make them – and we are all guilty. Yes, I generalize, because it is fast and easy. When we take stock and think about how many promises we make every single day, our collective heads will twirl full speed – and yes, yours too.

A promise is a commitment by somebody promising to do or not do something; rather simple. But the second we start promising left and right, the ‘broken’ part pops up rather often, more than is comfortable. I’m not talking the biggies as in solemn promises of marriage vows, military oaths and legal contracts, though they are also broken, and I’m not even going to mention the election promises politicians are burping up until they are elected, as I will giggle too much and roll my eyes till it hurts.

How about the everyday promises; how about the many promises we in many cases roll out because we can’t keep our mouth closed? Why do we promise so much? You might still think: ‘where the heck is he going with this?’ so I’ll enlighten you.

When we try to kiss somebody off (meant in a nice way) we use so many different tools and they all fit into the promise category, something we would normally not think about as a promise – but it is. “Okay, I’ll call you later…” – “I’ll have it ready…” – “meet you at 6:30…” – “it’s in the mail… (Though soon an outdated promise – but say it anyway, nobody is listening), etc. You see, all these things are promises, like a million others. 

Though I hammer on broken promises, and do NOT like being promised something that is not being kept as stated, I am also afraid that we are utterly numb concerning the fact that so many promises we are given are being broken. It’s like we have accepted it as a ‘broken’ fact – don’t you think that’s sad?

I’m a healthy 67, so I have been around the block a lot, so I should by now have come to the conclusion, that taking ANY promises serious, actually expecting said promises to be honored, is stupid, pathetic and ignorant. No, that doesn’t mean that I condone the thought of whatever, it’s just that I don’t understand why I still believe that when you tell me that you will call me later, you’ll actually call me later, as I (duh) expect that you will do precisely as you promised.

Another side to this, as pathetic, is the deal that when we promise something to somebody we kind of already have the feeling that we ain’t gonna live up to what we just told you we would do. So we not only break a promise to that other person or persons, but we already broken that promise to ourselves – and that’s where even the true meaning of ‘pathetic’ is too weak. Does this ring a few bells?

I have always believed that for each of us to have a grand relationship with others, we are in dire need of having the best relationship with ourselves first. But when we are not fully honest with ourselves, how will that translate to somebody else, somebody we want to, or perhaps are forced to and need to build a healthy and solid relationship? That’s a good time to reconsider what kind of promises we want to burp out – so casually.

Early on in my career (management / production) I was extremely cautious concerning ‘things’ being done in my departments. I underlined that we all had to trust each other concerning what we said, what we planned to do, etc. Getting a large group of employees to produce at top level, it was necessary to coordinate all resources to perfection to excel and profit. One of the issues became apparent in the start, and that was the many ‘promises’ made, but not kept; and I had to find a solution fast.

I ended up asking every project manager to communicate with me directly and several times daily. I had decided that each of them making statements at production meetings about WHAT they were GOING to do and by when, did not hold water – okay, sometimes, but too often not. So I worked with all of them seeking the direction and action needed to be followed, what we (the company) had in mind. So instead of telling me WHAT they were going to do, now they only informed me WHAT they had DONE. That way our meetings became much more effective, a lot more positive and energized. Instead of pushing the issues and the work-load we were pulling them – a much healthier proposition.

Some dude named Immanual Kant stated that “promises should always be kept”. I’m so totally with him on that. My beef is that if you already know you won’t be able to keep whatever promise is nearly crossing your luscious lips, then don’t make it a promise – make it a statement instead. I prefer that you don’t tell me that you’ll call me later. I much more prefer that I get a call from you out of the proverbial blue; and I wouldn’t have wasted time sitting by my (mobile) phone waiting for your call.

Some consequentialists argue that promises should be broken pretty much whenever it benefits you… egotism at its best. Would lying also be okay – when it profits us?

I’m still promising things to my wife and I do my very best to keep and do what I promise. At times I don’t find the time to iron her clothes, clean the house, do this or that, but she knows that it’s not because I promised something empty, it’s just a matter of fitting everything in time wise.

I do not like to negate on any promises I make, so instead, I try to remember to do what I preached for so many years: Don’t tell me what you are going to do; just tell me when you have done it. If I wobble around the block a few more times, I might actually end up living by that wise statement, huh? So if I hear from you, out of the blue, would beat a broken promise anytime – don’t you think?

PROCRASTINATION – now, wait a minute!

To me, procrastination is the innate art-form of delaying what I should do, must do, have to do and absolutely cannot discard as never-to-be-done; sounds familiar? If you need a bit of time to come up with an answer, you are so much on track, that it’s not even funny – though it is. And if you incoherently thought: manana (Spanish for tomorrow), you are one of us… 

Let’s start by looking at the clinical form of procrastination. Just so you know, I started writing this article a few days after I really should have started. Right now it’s actually the very morning of the day I need to publish a new post. But then I comfort myself by acknowledging that I do work much better under pressure, which is only somewhat true and something I really do not prefer to do…

Procrastination: Some of the explanation says that we tend to solve lesser issues first, and the more stressful and difficult ones are procrastinated into the future, near or far. It says that we prefer to deal with problem-solving this way, though it brings along anxieties and stress – but we do it anyway; go figure.

I’m more of the everyday type procrastinator. I can procrastinate the most innate issues and tasks, but nothing mind-blowing. In retrospect, for the most just crap and stupid stuff – and then I wonder why, again and again. At times I’m even procrastinating about deciding to procrastinate – a tad pathetic, if you ask me.

Perhaps you go through some of the same emotions I do. As an example: I’m retired and as my wife is not the same age as I am, she is still out there in the real world working. So as I retired, I wanted to grab more of a helping share, and amongst that house-cleaning, shopping, cooking, etc. Yes, I’m a team-player. 

There are certain things I am not overly eager to do, though sometimes whatever it is, it ends up actually being fun – really. House-cleaning is one of the duties I procrastinate again and again. Yes I know, nothing Earth-shattering. But the stupidity of it is that I go through all this delaying, procrastinating, blah blah blah and as I know I have to clean the house at some point, why don’t I just go ahead and do it. You see, as I’m sure you experience yourself – many times, we waste so much time of silly agony, excuses to one-self and the list can be so long, that “in-the-meantime” during all this pathetic negotiation with one-self, we could have cleaned the house several times. I mean, how stupid is that?

I’m one of these rare over-organizers, pretty much everything I do daily is noted in the calendar that originates on my computer and loads up and down to iPhone, lap-top and tablet (Kindle, in this case). So what I’m supposed to do, from the daily to-do-list, to reminders of appointments, birthdays and other stuff, etc. is always right in front of me; the furthest away would be my pocket.

I am not going to tell you the details of my planning schedule, as you will immediately use the nasty term: anal; referring to the emotion, and not anything bodily, though it sounds like it – and is true about some people (not me, of course; adorable is more who I am)…

So every morning I follow a concentrated routine, from the simple matters of simple stuff, through a bit more sophisticated things. The routine stuff gets boring at times (often), but is essential for my life to be in as perfect order, emotionally and functionality-wise as possible. I rarely miss a beat, and am the dude to go to for information about our days, weeks and months. I know my wife does that ‘rolling-eye’ bit at times, but I do not blink, as I feel I have to do it this way; this is the way I like it – and it is effective.

As I am anal about deleting tasks and things as I do them, I am also good at doing them as I must; it’s kind of an added pressure, but in a pleasant way, as in task done, and off to the next we go. So procrastination is very rare concerning the daily stuff, but can show its nasty face concerning some of the bigger issues – depending on the level of how much I like or hate doing those things.

And one of them is, that the dog needs to be washed the first, every month. The thing is that it’s not a big deal – it really isn’t. Sure the dog is not in a party mood when we ask her to jump into the tub, tail solidly tugged between hind-legs, and if I had a tail, that’s where it would be as well. But she gets washed, rinsed and after 10 minutes with the conditioner, she’s all done, shaking water off everywhere. When she has received a goodie, she is as happy as I am (and I don’t even get a goodie).

Procrastination is delaying; why we need a big word to cover that, I don’t know. But we are surrounded by big words for simple things. Most of us cannot even spell procrastination on the first try, but we do know what it means. So since we know what it means and since we also know how we feel doing that damn procrastination thing (only bad and guilty), why not try to eliminate some of our delays. Let’s face the music and get it done. We know it should and must be done at some point, so why not now? It makes us feel so much better, it really does. And I strongly believe that feeling better is better than feeling bad and guilty.

I feel much better now, as this post is ready to be released; just a few more things, then comes that big sigh and the adorable smirk – job done (but why didn’t I write this a few days ago? I might never find out the real reason, but I will try harder next time, I promise – procrastination at its best)…