know yourself better and take charge of your own life in a creative and empowered way.
Assertiveness: Skills + Mindset
Do you want to expand your comfort zone?
Can you speak up in a group?
Do you sell yourself with impact, or with an apology?
Can you give and receive a compliment?
Do you stand tall and proud, when facing the world around you?
Can you treat the giving and receiving of criticism creatively, or is it a destructive process in your life?
Can you face someone who’s irritating without letting your annoyance spill out, uncontrolled?
Can you do things even though they feel risky?
When you are embarrassed, or angry, can you still function effectively?
Can you present yourself authentically?
Can you join in, even when you don’t know the ropes?
Do you make the most out of your life?
Can you let people see your weaknesses and still feel proud?
Can you fake confident body language, even if you are nervous?
I offer a programme of separate courses that are designed to help you broaden your self-confidence and ability to make an impact, know yourself better and take charge of your own life in a creative and empowered way.
About Us
The phone rang…
I was once round at a friend’s house in Leeds when the phone rang. His girlfriend, Sally, picked up the receiver (it was 1988, hence ‘receiver’!), and it was one of her female friends: they proceeded to have a conversation during which they told each other how they were, how they were feeling about things.
Sally sounded warm and relaxed, and there was plenty of room for the conversation to breathe. This might seem totally normal, but what struck me was how open they were with each other. I thought, ‘how come I don’t have conversations like that with my friends?
I had thought of myself as quite an open kind of person, but now I was beginning to wonder if I could make more satisfying relationships with people, and particularly with men.
I realised I presented a certain persona of competence to the world, so if anyone asked ‘how are you?’ I would say fine, or not bad etc., but I wouldn’t really go into how I was. And I wasn’t really truthful with myself about my own emotional ups and downs.
The group…
I later joined a men’s group and found a bunch of people who were all for different reasons wanting to find out about themselves. We ran the group as a kind of self-help, DIY therapy group for a while, but, as is common for groups that focus on the self and relationships, we ran into some difficult conflicts and decided in the end to call in a therapist to help us sort through what was going on in the group. The group continued to have both difficulties and rich opportunities for personal growth, and I stayed in it for about 9 years in total.
‘Assert Yourself!’…
I also became interested in assertiveness training. In my 20’s I had thought of myself as a fairly confident person, but then I saw a TV programme on Channel 4, with Anne Dickson and Andrew Sachs, called ‘Assert yourself!’ It really made me think about how I would stop myself from putting my point across to people, or else how I might get into blaming the world for my problems, instead of taking responsibility for my development.
Taboo feelings…
The assertiveness training course that I subsequently did in Leeds focused on ways of behaving, and was very useful to me. But I started to wonder about what was going on underneath or behind my behaviour – why do I do what I do? What are the feelings that inform my choices? What about sadness, joy, disappointment, ambition, anger, jealousy, envy? And, how do my feelings and internal workings help me or hinder me when I have to deal with challenging issues like relationships, career change, family changes and health questions? Round about the same time, I got into co-counselling.
You can read about that elsewhere on this site, if you’re interested. What I got most from co-counselling was a sense of freedom to be myself – I felt I had permission to explore inside myself without being disapproved of if I found something unpleasant.
The truth…
These things – the men’s group, assertiveness training, co-counselling – started to help me find out the truth about myself and be more in command of my own life.
When I started to train professionally as a therapist I began seeing a therapist myself, first in individual therapy, and later in group therapy. I have worked with four or five different therapists over the years. See the stories in my blog that show how this impacted on me.
This comprehensive one-day assertiveness training course is designed to enable delegates to use a more confident approach when developing productive working relationships.
All our business skills training courses are delivered by experts in their field. They provide effective and practical knowledge that individuals can use to develop their personal skills for the modern workplace.
This course identifies the behaviour patterns that lead to these situations. You will practise a new set of behaviour patterns to enable you to be in control in interpersonal situations
Being assertive means expressing your opinion in a clear and direct manner, while continuing to respect other. Learning how to communicating assertively can help you to reduce conflict, to manage anger, to have your needs better met, and to have improved relationships with friends, family, colleagu...
© 2024 coursetakers.com All Rights Reserved. Terms and Conditions of use | Privacy Policy