Job competition is fierce out there in the world of work. It seems that there is always someone ready to jump right in if you make a mistake. Our life is busy, we get caught up in the day to day stuff and sometimes become unaware of the impressions that we leave on people. Some people will even think that we don't care.

The answer? Learn to be assertive!

Assertiveness is much bigger than respecting other people's rights and not offending anyone. To be truly assertive is to be someone with character. What is character you may ask? Someone who has character possesses very distinct personal traits that are respected. Here is a short list of traits:

• Honesty

• Thinks of others first

• On time

• Credibility

• Kind

• Generous

• Accepting

We all like to think that we posses such traits and yet look around and you will see that this does not hold true for everyone. Think of it this way, those people have forgotten and are unaware of the impressions that they are leaving. For most of us, we just need a little refining here and there. The real question is "what do people think about me and what do they say about me when in my absence?”

If you have suspicions about what people's impression of you is, then you had better start taking action to repair any damage you have created. Yes, that is what I said....what you have created. Don't even think that you are not responsible for your actions. It doesn't serve you to think that way. The best thing to do is to look for things that you either said or did that created the impression that others have of you. This way, you can take responsibility (you do have the ability to respond don't you?) and do something about it. Otherwise, you too will become unaware of the impressions that you are giving other people of you.

One way to begin to take assertive action is to look at your personal standards. If for example, your gut feeling is that people don't see you as reliable because you are consistently late, have a look at your standard for being on time. If your standard is that "on-time" is 10 minutes on either side of a specified time, then practice being 10 minutes early. Take responsibility (you do have the ability-to-respond, don't you) by arranging your life so that you are 10 minutes early.

Better yet, make a personal agreement with someone that you will be on time for all your appointments and create a consequence for yourself. The consequence doesn't have to be anything devastating yet, it needs to be undesirable. Make it simple like; if you are late, then you will wash the floor in your kitchen. Now that would be a productive consequence. How fun is that? The key to consequences is to be very careful and DO NOT choose something that you are not willing to do. You will set yourself up to break your word to yourself and that leads to feeling bad and low self-esteem.

By raising your standards you are being assertive! You will not only feel better about yourself, you will establish your credibility. And how will you feel about that? Pretty incredible!

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