Your Perfect Right

Book excerpt: Your Perfect Right—the leading assertiveness guide with over 1.3 million copies sold—is now fully updated and revised. This indispensable guide to equal-relationship assertiveness is packed with step-by-step exercises, tips, and skills to help you express yourself effectively. Are you comfortable starting a conversation with strangers at a party? Do you sometimes feel ineffective in making your needs clear? Do you have difficulty saying no to persuasive people? Everyone needs a little help getting along with others. Assertiveness is a key social skill, as well as a tool for making your relationships more equal. Learning to respond more effectively to others can help you reduce stress and increase your sense of self-worth. In this fully updated and revised tenth edition, you’ll learn practical advice on dealing with difficult people, handling criticism, and expressing your feelings. You’ll also discover how to use humor in conflict resolution, ways to clarify others’ intentions, and how to distinguish between encouraging and discouraging communication habits. This edition also includes a new introduction by coauthor Robert Alberti, in addition to research and information on the subjects of anger and interpersonal communication. Assertiveness is an alternative to personal powerlessness or manipulation. The program in this book will help you develop effective ways to express yourself, maintain your self-respect, and show respect for others. This is not a “me-first” book—it's all about equal-relationship assertiveness!