"He who does not have the courage to speak up for his rights cannot earn the respect of others." - René G. Torres

We’d like to thank all of those who participated in last week’s mini-poll. We greatly appreciate your participation.

If anxiety, unhappiness, and ill-health aren’t good enough reasons for changing the unhealthy behavior of living passively into the healthier behavior of living assertively, then consider this, the results of last week’s mini-poll:

Question 1: Out of all the people you’ve known or interacted with, whom have you respected the most, and why?
There were a wide variety of answers, such as a parent(s), co-worker, friend, boss, teacher, sister or brother, grand parent(s), pastor, and colleague.

Question 2: What kind of behavior did he or she exhibit when interacting with you and others?
Assertive – 87%
Passive – 13%
Aggressive – 0%

Consistent with popular opinion, people who live assertively are generally admired and respected. Those who live passively generally aren’t. Certainly, there will be exceptions, but they are few.

That’s been our experience, as well. When we (the folks at anxietycentre.com) lived passively we felt we weren’t respected and consequently, struggled with low self-esteem.

Reasons for not being respected included, that our “niceness” came off as being “too” nice, wishy-washy, soft, having no backbone, pushovers, weak, and of no opinion.

While we weren’t “nice” all the time, unfortunately, we were nice when we should have been assertive.

This is the problem: People who live passively are nice when they should be assertive.

So while we may believe “niceness” works, it actually works against us in key situations.

This is true with all unhealthy behaviors: we think our behaviors work for us when, in fact, they actually work against us.

As we mentioned in earlier Tips, many of our unhealthy behaviors are developed during our formative years, when we may have needed to adopt an unhealthy behavior in order to cope with an unhealthy situation. Once these behaviors are learned, though, they become automatic and comfortable. The more we use them, the more automatic and comfortable they become.

As we grow up, we generally continue to use these unhealthy behaviors not suspecting that there is anything wrong with them, even though our life circumstances and environment may have changed. Many of us don’t challenge the evidence unless we’re forced to, and therefore, our unhealthy behaviors continue.

Challenging the evidence, however, is a great way to detect unhealthy behaviors. By challenging the evidence we mean: checking the current evidence to see if a current behavior still provides the results you are looking for.

For example, people who live passively do so because they believe their passive or “nice” approach will gain them acceptance and the respect of others. While being passive may have worked that way as a child, as an adult, the evidence suggests otherwise. People who live passively typically AREN’T respected.

Challenging the current evidence is also an excellent motivator to become determined enough to make behavioral change.

If you are living passively and desire to be respected, this NEW evidence—knowing that the majority of people won’t respect you—should motivate you to make behavioral change. And, if your desire to be accepted and respected is stronger than your desire to live passively, you’ll be eager and determined to change.

When you combine this with all of the other evidence associated with living passively, you’ll see that change is your best course of action, especially when your happiness and health are at stake.

Next week we’re going to talk about the final pieces of evidence, and why this NEW evidence should motivate you to change. Then we’re going to proceed with tips on how to make that change.

Have a great week.