Jillian Schouten

Comm. 2110
Personal Change Project
11/19/2015
This paper outlines my personal change project. My goal was to become more
assertive with my conversation skills. In doing this, I applied several strategies from
my textbook. My results were extremely positive from my perspective; however I
know that I still have more room to grow in this area. One goal I have for the future is
to continue to pursue my own best interests without denying other people theirs and to
do this without feeling guilty about it.
Unwanted Communication Pattern
I have always struggled with not being assertive in my conversations and interactions
with other people by withhold my feelings and my view of situations. In my ways this
affects my life negatively because when I am not assertive in conversations, my
feelings and rights are often trampled on and I end up getting taken advantage of, this
is especially true when dealing with aggressive communicators. Ultimately, this leads
to feeling manipulated, feelings of resentment and it eventually affects my selfconfidence, self-esteem and relationships.
Here are two examples:
One example of this could be when I was planning my wedding. I called my dad to
discuss things and he told me that the only way that he was going to help pay for any
of it was if I made sure that my mother had nothing to do with any of the planning and
that if he found out that she had so much as been consulted on what color the
bridesmaids dresses should be that he would not financially contribute. I was
justifiably upset by this and I got very emotional very quickly and I didnt slow down
to really talk or try to have a decent conversation about it. I wasnt able to express my
feeling in a way that he might have tried to understand me more and needless to say
the situation escalated to the point that I hung up on him and didnt talk to him for at
least 6 months. I ended up missing out on having my dad involved in the planning of
my wedding, being fully financially responsible for everything since my mom was not
able to contribute financially and I almost didnt have him at my wedding. It was a
very stressful time and this only made it more so.

 We are friends with the March Fourth Marching Band from Oregon and all 20something of them stay with us when they play shows here. As a thank you to us they
always give us free tickets to their shows and let us add several friends to the guest
list. About three times now we have added someone to the list that said they wanted to
go and RSVPd, and they never showed up. This makes for an uncomfortable situation
for me because sometime I have specifically went out of my way to add them, going
over the amount that the band likes to allow and they are taking a spot away from all
the other people that I had ask me for a ticket. I really dislike when this happens
because I feel like they are trying to take advantage of me and then not respecting the
gift that I am trying to give them. It also makes me look bad and I worry that the band
will think that I am trying to take advantage of them. This usually leads to some
tension and resentment in the relationship on my end and makes me feel awkward
about our friendship.
In both of these examples, not being assertive didnt work very well. When dealing
with my father, if I had used the strategies that I will outline below, instead of just
getting upset, crying and yelling I could have taken more time to calmly describe my
view of the situation (Beebe, pg. 181). By doing this I might have been able to get my
father to see that from my perspective he was being very unfair and irrational and that
it was very important rite of passage to have my mother assist with the wedding.
With my friend and the concert tickets, I didnt describe my view of the situation very
well or how I felt about it. If I had, they might not have taken it so lightly and they
might have respected what I was doing for them more.
Strategies
When I decided that I wanted to change this communication habit, I planned to apply
the following strategies in my daily conversations. I really tried to remember be more
assertive and to apply these strategies in each conversation that called for it. I wanted
to experience more positive outcomes and feeling from conversations when so often it
has felt negative. To do this I wanted to use more assertive techniques, Beebe has
outlines the five key behaviors to develop skills in asserting yourself.

1-Describe how I view the situation (Beebe, pg.181). By describing the how I view
the situation it allows other people to have a chance to see things from my
perspective; they may not even be aware that there is an issue so this can also be
useful in making them aware that there might be a difference of opinions or that there
is an unacceptable behavior occurring.
2- Disclose my feelings (Beebe, pg.181). Letting the other person know how I feel
helps to build empathy and they might be more inclined to respect my feelings and
wishes. This allows them a chance to take my feelings into consideration.
3- Identify the effects of the behavior (Beebe, pg.182). By Identifying the effects of
their behavior on myself and others it allows them to examine if their actions are
other-oriented or not.
4- Be silent and wait (Beebe, pg.182). While being silent, make sure that your
nonverbal cues match you message so as not to confuse the other person, or give them
the impression that you are being sarcastic. Support your verbal message with your
nonverbal messages.
5- Paraphrase content and feelings (Beebe, pg.182). After the other person has
responded, paraphrase both the content and the feelings of your message. Wait to see
if their response is evasive, unresponsive or aggressive. If so you may need to recycle
through the five steps again and make sure that it is clear to the other person that the
behavior is not acceptable.
The strategy of being assertive will help me to improve communication with other
people, when they are not being-other oriented. While I realize that my father was
being very aggressive and was pretty awful in the situation, I think that if I had been
able to use more assertive tactics that I might have been able to keep the situation
from escalating and possibly been able to turn it around. Following that, if I was able
to disclose my feelings about the situation and how his decision was affecting me not
only financially but emotionally, it is possible that he might have come around to a
compromise and I would have ended up in a better situation where I could have come
away much less upset, less finically burdened and not forced to choose between my
parents. The entire situation might have been less stressful and chaotic all around.

Constraints
I encountered a few constraints while I was attempting to put this change into effect.
When I was in situations where I felt that I needed to be assertive I was still faced
with feeling guilty about pursuing my own best interests. I felt myself wanting to just
give up sometimes so that I did not risk hurting anyones feelings or having them get
upset with me because I was not going to be doing or saying things the way that they
wanted me to.
The other constraint I ran into was realizing that some people are simply just
aggressive and have communication issues of their own. No matter how hard you try,
the conversation may not always go smoothly or work out without conflict.
Implementation
An example of how I implemented this new behavior was when I had to bring up an
issue with someone. I throw a Yule party every year and this time I didnt invite a
certain person that I have known only for about a year. The last few times she has
been invited to anything she has been extremely overpowering and rude to most of my
dearest friends and is has been very inconsiderate for me on several occasions. I
decided that the friendship was one sided and that she wasnt actually interested in
having a functional relationship. This realization alone was a huge step in the right
direction. I was just going to let the friendship taper off without incident until she
started sending me repeated messages asking where her invitation was. It wouldnt
stop, so I ended up having to address the situation. I expressed to her my decision and
how I had come to it using examples from previous interactions such as the time that
she had insulted my friends and husband without remorse or the time she called and
asked me to squeeze her in for an emergency hair appointment that HAD to be in an
hour. Even though it was tight for me I penciled her in. She never showed up and I
didnt hear from her for 4 hours. She apologized and asked if I could squeeze her in
again the very next day. I said yes and the very next day she stood me up again and
simply just made an excuse about being on the phone with her mom. I made sure to
express my exact feelings and the effects of her behavior on myself and others (Beebe,
2014, p.181 &182) but was VERY careful not to be emotional or mean and told her
that I really just needed to do what was best for my well-being and that of my guests. I

also made sure not to evaluate her as a person when I was doing this, I tried to use I
statement whenever possible and I tried to be empathetic to her as well by saying
things like, Maybe you are going through a hard time right now, or deal with a lot. I
was pretty awesome because I put in such a way that there was no room for her to get
mad or fire back at me. She said she understood and that she was sorry for her
behavior and any feelings that she had hurt. Of course she went and threw a gigantic
fit about it all over multiple social media outlets later, but that was to be expected and
is an example of one of the constraints I have encountered because sometimes no
matter what I do, some people are just not going to be willing to take a look at
themselves and truly try to be other-oriented. At times I did feel a few pangs of fear
and guilt, I didnt want her to hate me or to blow up at me but I was able to overcome
this for the most part even though it was really hard and nerve-racking. I
accomplished everything that I had set out to achieve in this instance. Knowing who
the person was I had no wants or expectations for there being a friendship afterwards,
but I was pleased that I was able to protect my own best interests without denying her
rights.
Results
As I applied the strategies outlined above I was able to see how it has been creating a
positive effect in my life. I have noticed that I feel less stressed out because I dont
feel like I have to been running around crazy all the time just to keep everyone happy
and I feel like I am being truer to myself. It feels really nice to be able to have a
conversation and not have to sacrifice my ideas, thought and feelings just so people
will stay happy with me. This is really empowering and it feels like I have more room
to breathe and I feel like it has actually helped me come into myself and feel
comfortable and confident to just be me. Some people have not reacted how I wished
they would have to this, but I am realizing and becoming more comfortable with the
idea that I am not responsible for their feels or happiness. I am only responsible for
mine. I see this as a positive even though at times it did feel like a negative, but most
of that is just old programming and is something that feels great to start overcoming,
but will take more time and effort on my part to combat, especially when I am
engaging in very uncomfortable and emotional discussions with family members.

Recommendations
I will absolutely continue to implement these strategies. I think that so far it has really
helped me in my communication and interactions. It is still hard, but not impossible
for me to be assertive in many situations and requires me to engage in conscious
though about how situations are unfolding and how they are making me feel, rather
than ignoring my needs and wants at my expense. I am trying to pay closer attention
to my thoughts, feelings and intuition and am making an effort to honor myself and
my personal well-being and I will continue to try to improve on this by describing,
disclosing and identifying the effects (Beebe, 2014, p.181 &182) that certain
behaviors have on me. I think that it is also useful to incorporate conflict management
skills into this because as I have said before, sometime people are just not ready or
willing to be other-oriented and lack the skills of knowing how to be assertive rather
than aggressive. In those cased it will be useful to know how to handle situations that
seems to insist on escalating by using conflict management skills (Beebe, pg. 240250).

Works Cited
Beebe, Beebe & Redmond. (2014). Interpersonal Communication:
Relating to Others. 7th Edition, Boston: Pearson Education, Inc.