ABSTRACT
For this chapter and the next two, I have used titles that include the word “managing.” The chapters are all based on the idea of coping better through being more assertive, but they deal with different aspects of this. I have tried to be as logical as possible in dividing up the material in the chapters to put the ideas in the most helpful way. You may well, though, end up shuffling between the three chapters (there is plenty of cross-referencing). I start in this chapter with some behavioral techniques for managing better. These deal with the words and approach you might use in a situation, and we might call these some of the tools of assertiveness. In the next chapter I shift upwards in scale to consider the management of some situations that are characteristically difficult, for example situations in which you give or receive criticism or receive compliments (Chapter 8). In the third of this set of three (Chapter 9) I will be looking at the management of the thoughts and emotions that influence the way in which you behave, particularly in the difficult situations described in Chapter 8. Half of Chapter 9 is a listing of ways of coping with thoughts and emotions and half of it is about the basic idea of being confident and having reasonable self-esteem. Self-confidence and good self-esteem supports and is supported by assertive behavior.
