How To Stick Up For Yourself

Do you want to know how to stick up for yourself?

When was the last time you said no to something you didn’t like or asked for something you wanted?

Are you tired of being bullied, harassed, walked over, or treated like a doormat over and over again?

Are you trying to become a better person either at work or in your personal life by learning how to stick up for yourself?

Most times you can’t control people’s behavior especially negative behavior towards you.

However, how you react to people’s behavior lies in your hand.

If you keep enduring negative behavior towards you either in your business, work, or personal life, people will think you’re ok with it.

As such, they’ll continue to treat you that way without regard for your feelings or emotions.

Rather than condoling such and experiencing emotional hurt each time people treat you badly, you need to learn how to stick up for yourself.

This is so you can defend yourself from being mistreated or disrespected either in your business, work, or personal life.

Thereby, helping you build respect and be treated better either in your business, professional, or personal relationships.

In this blog post, we share insight on tips that can help you stick up for yourself.

Read on to find out all you need to know.

How To Stick Up For Yourself – Easier Said Than Done

The idea of sticking or standing up for yourself sounds easier said than done for most people.

Many times, they make a resolution to try speaking up for themselves should the need arise but find themselves running back into their shells too soon.

As such the circle of disrespect and mistreatment continues in their lives.

They remain unhappy, dissatisfied with their lives generally, and end up carrying a heavy burden of unexpressed feelings on their chests.

Sticking up for yourself can be quite difficult especially in awkward situations where the other person involved is somewhat higher than you or someone you really care about.

However, you can build up courage and learn to stick up for yourself regardless of the situation involved.

All you need is your willingness to change how you let people treat you and the commitment to keep practicing.

Before we share tips on how to stick up for yourself, let’s understand what it means to stick up for yourself.

What Does It Mean To Stand Up For Yourself?

Sticking up or standing up for yourself can mean a lot of things and sometimes people get the whole idea wrongly.

Hence, here is a simple definition of what it means to stick or stand up for yourself.

To stick up for yourself means being able to defend yourself from other people who attack you verbally or treat you badly.

Having said that, here are some things about sticking up for yourself that you should know.

This is so you can fully understand what the concept of sticking up for yourself is all about.

Sticking up for yourself involves;

speaking up against injustice, maltreatment, disrespect against yourself.
being firm and bold on your opinions/beliefs
not being afraid to share your ideas and be heard
refusing to be the victim or a pushover
not allowing people to force their beliefs or opinions on you
not being a people pleaser and pushing your needs aside
having a high sense of self-worth, upholding it, and ensuring that people treat you accordingly
being able to say no to things that you’re not so pleased with

Furthermore, here are a few things that represent the wrong idea about sticking up for yourself.

Sticking up for yourself doesn’t mean;

being rude, arrogant, and aggressive towards people
that you have to prove that you’re right all the time
excessively selfish or self-centered
being rebellious
being ego-centric and having a false sense of entitlement or importance
rejecting constructive criticisms, feedback on behavior, and people’s honest opinions
being overly defensive even when you’re in the wrong

Having discovered what it means to stick up for yourself, let’s consider the right way to go about it so you don’t pass off as being rude.

Tips On How To Stick Up For Yourself

Sticking up for yourself requires a lot of courage.

However, when you learn to do so, you can begin to reap off the many benefits of sticking up for yourself which we will look into later on in this blog post.

Here’s how to become a better person capable of sticking up for yourself and attract the respect you deserve.

Build Confidence And Courage

The first important step towards sticking up for yourself is to build confidence and courage.

It takes a lot of confidence to speak up to unfair treatment and uphold your beliefs.

More so, when you lack confidence in yourself, people can easily recognize this.

Thereby, making them see you as a weak person and feel that they can easily walk over or bully you.

Hence, the need for you to build confidence and courage.

This is so that you can be bold enough to speak up to people who try to oppress or treat you badly.

Gaining confidence to speak up most times will not be easy.

However, there are certain things that you could do to increase your confidence level over time.

They include;

practice saying positive words of affirmation daily
remind yourself of how good you are (your strong skills, personal and professional achievement no matter how little)
feel good about yourself and believe in yourself more

Building confidence doesn’t happen overnight.

It takes little consistent, committed efforts, and practice.

Through this, you’ll find your confidence building from within and improving over time.

Consequently, helping you have the confidence and courage to stick up for yourself more.

Build Charisma

Another thing that could get people to treat you better and help you stick up for yourself when necessary is your charisma.

Charisma is a combination of your personality traits, behavior, or attitude that makes you attract the respect of others.

When you develop a good and likable personality, people will hold you in high esteem.

More so, knowing that you’re being held in high esteem will give you the confidence you need to speak up when people fall out of line in their behavior towards you.

Bear in mind that building charisma isn’t about pleasing people or following people’s wishes blindly just to get them to like you.

Rather it is about building respect through a good attitude, values, and positive behavior towards people.

Thereby, positively impacting how people treat you and your perception of yourself.

Overall, building charisma would help you gain the respect of people and get them to treat you better.

It would also help you develop a positive self-image.

Consequently, helping you hold yourself in high-esteem and stick up for yourself when you’re being pushed over.

Learn To Say No

This is another way to be confident and prevent yourself from being a pushover.

Many people are in the habit of saying yes always even when they’re not so pleased with the request.

If you keep saying yes to everything people ask of you at the expense of your happiness or desires, then you’ll remain a pushover or a people pleaser.

Thereby, making it difficult for you to stick up for yourself when you’re being mistreated, bullied, or oppressed.

Either in your business, professional, or personal relationships learn to say no especially to outrageous demands.

It would not be easy at first but do it anyway.

You can practice saying no to little things like; saying no to a free ride, launch, or going for a party with friends if you don’t feel like it.

By doing so, you’ll get comfortable with saying no without the fear of hurting people’s feelings or what they might think of you.

Thereby helping you say no, speak up more confidently, and stick up for yourself.

Be Transparent And Authentic In Your Relationship With People

This is another important tip on how to stick up for yourself.

Being transparent and authentic has to do with being real and honest with yourself and in your relationship with the people around you.

Most times for fear of being judged, offending people, and being seen in a bad light, you’re not so real in your interpersonal relationship.

Due to this, you find it difficult to express your feelings or displeasure with how people treat you.

You hide your displeasure behind a fake smile and pretend like everything is all right when in the real sense you’re unhappy.

More so, you pretend like you’re cool with an idea rather than being honest and speaking up about what you think.

This is why you should try as much as possible to be transparent and honest either in your business, professional, and personal relationship.

Learn to be more open about your feelings and make yourself heard when you need to.

Thus, helping you stick out for yourself.

Be Assertive; Firm, Bold And Direct But In A Polite Manner

This is another tip on how to stick or stand up for yourself.

Assertiveness is a sure way to stick up for yourself without being aggressive about it.

As an assertive person, you;

express your feelings, desires, and emotions freely
you’re confident about yourself or your abilities and you don’t allow anyone to run you down or make you believe otherwise
you’re more in control of your emotions
more so, you know your self-worth and don’t sell yourself short by allowing people to walk over you.

You can practice assertiveness by being firm, bold, and direct but politely in your professional or personal relationship.

By being firm and direct in your dealings with people you don’t come across as being weak and you’ll be taken more seriously.

More so, when expressing your opinion ensure to speak boldly and firmly.

Thereby, helping you express your desires confidently and stick up for yourself when you need to.

Set Personal Boundaries And Enforce Them Strictly

Another thing that could help you stick or stand up for yourself is to set personal boundaries.

Personal boundaries can be regarded as established rules or limitations that you enforce in your interpersonal relationships.

Personal boundaries can be very effective in helping you protect your dignity and standing up for yourself when you’re being mistreated.

It helps you set reasonable limits to the kinds of behavior you condole in your interpersonal relationship.

Even more, it sends a message to people around you telling them how you want to be treated.

Setting personal boundaries is one thing, enforcing it is another thing entirely.

When you set personal boundaries, ensure that you take them seriously, and enforce them strictly.

This is because when you don’t and you allow one person to take advantage of you or mistreat you while you keep quiet about it, others will follow suit.

Consequently, making it difficult for you to defend or stick up for yourself when the need arises.

This is not about being fierce, rude, unfriendly, or aggressive.

Rather it is about protecting yourself from emotional, or physical mistreatment and being in control of your life.

Hence, set healthy personal boundaries, and speak up when these boundaries are crossed.

Thereby, helping you to stick out for yourself.

Practice Sticking Up For Yourself

Sometimes, you don’t need to wait until the situation presents itself before you learn to stick up for yourself.

Most times when you find yourself in negative situations that you need to stick up for yourself, the confidence to do so fades away, and you find yourself accepting the bad treatment.

This is true for most people especially introverts.

While you might lack the confidence to speak your mind in such situations, you can build yourself up through consistent practice.

All you need is to imagine a scenario where you need to speak up for yourself and practice how you would handle the situation.

You could do this standing before a mirror or you could do it with a friend.

Also, you could reflect on instances where you’ve been treated badly, acknowledge how you felt, and write down some ideas on how best to respond to such a situation should it happen again.

Practice these responses with a friend as well or on your own.

Remember, when it comes to developing a new habit or learning a new skill starting small makes the process more effective.

Hence, practice sticking up for yourself by starting with small actions such as rejecting a wrong order or asking for a refund when a wrong order is delivered.

Over time you’ll build enough confidence to stick up for yourself in more difficult and awkward situations.

Avoid Negative People

Another thing you could do to preserve your dignity and stick up for yourself is to avoid negative people.

This doesn’t mean that you’re being a coward or you lack confidence.

It just means that you’re taking responsibility for your life and you’re looking after yourself by avoiding people that could upset you or make you feel bad about yourself.

It also shows that you’re determined not to allow their negativity to impact your life.

When they throw tantrums at you, politely walk away from them.

This isn’t a sign of weakness, lack of confidence, or low self-esteem.

Rather it shows that you’re more emotionally mature and intelligent than them.

Thereby, helping you defeat them and stick up for yourself.

Now that you know how to stick up for yourself, let’s consider some of the benefits of sticking up for yourself.

Benefits Of Sticking Up For Yourself

There are so many reasons why sticking up for yourself is important for you.

Apart from the fact that it makes you a better person either in your personal or professional relationship, it also;

boosts your confidence and self-esteem
helps you avoid mental stress and anxiety thereby leading to a healthy and happier life
helps you build respect and preserves your dignity as a person
builds your self-worth
improves the quality of your interpersonal relationships
improves the overall quality of your life