Direct, Drive and Defend What Matters to You

In my previous article, I wrote about living a congruent life and how one needs to have mindfulness to achieve congruency. If we lived our life in a conscious and purposeful way, we would then be able to make decisions that enable us to live a congruent life.

I gave the example of how if I valued family time, my goal is to ensure everything I do enables me to have family time. I would plan my time and commit myself to various tasks that allowed me to be with my family proportionately more in a given day, week or month.

The question we are going to discuss in this article then is “are there times we are still not able to prioritize family time despite being mindful? And why?”

Of course “family time” is an example in this case. It could be money, cars, properties, studies, environment, animals, etc. Whatever that is important to us. The question remains: “are there times we are still not able to prioritize studying time or making money, or protecting the environment, despite being mindful? And why?”

In the study conduct by Williams and Stout (1985) with direct-service workers in mental health settings, both researchers found that Assertiveness has an effect on Locus of Control and Health Problems. The highly Assertive individuals were found to be more “internally controlled and to experience fewer health problems”.

This could mean that if I were assertive, I could be internally controlled of the energy I wanted to invest in, so that I had time for what was important to me. If I valued family time, I needed to assert mindfully to ensure I commit to tasks in my life that would enable me to have time with my family. If I aspired to do my work well, I would assert my time and energy for producing quality work and building positive relationships. Doing so, I am internally controlled and would be able to experience a more fulfilling life.

According to Lorr and More (1980), they are four kinds of assertive behaviors, namely:

 

1. Directiveness: If I wanted something to be done in a particular way, say my house renovation, I would choose to invest my energy in making sure the contractors are doing the work according to how I have instructed. I may even choose to supervise the completion of the renovation or the adherence to the contractual terms made.

 

2. Social Assertiveness: If I saw an elderly person or a pregnant lady in the train, I may choose to approach the person sitting on the priority seat to give it up for the elderly or pregnant person. I would be prepared to enter into a sensible discussion, possibly even a heated one, if the person in the priority seat was irresponsible and/or unreasonable.

 

3. Defense of One’s Interests: If I subscribe to the idea that living a congruent life is important and necessary, and it is of interest to me as a psychologist that people are minimally informed and presented how it could impact their personal well-being, particularly mental wellness, I may invest my resources to defend this interest and even be an advocate for living a congruent life.

 

4. Independence: And finally, at a more personal level, if advocating for congruency in life could help me individuate and bring out the very person I am meant to be, I could be choosing for my own independence, thinking, deciding and acting at every level, in a way that would bring about the best of me, allowing me to achieve greater fulfillment in life.