When I worked as a manager, I would always ask people what is one personality trait or characteristic they would like to develop. One of the answers I received was, “I would like to be more assertive.” Six months after this person started working with me, she was promoted and soon managing people and being assertive towards others. Being assertive is no longer the issue.

What are some of the ways that you can develop and become more assertive in your life?

Effective Way 1: Know your Values and Belief Systems

Having a set of principles to live by will help you become more assertive in your life in the areas you believe are necessary. These principles that guide you will allow you to simplify your life in complicated situations and to know when to stick up for yourself and when it’s not as important to stick to your guns.

A set of principles to help you increase your assertiveness might be:

1) I will say “No” when I mean it. And give the person an explanation why. And stick with it.
2) I will learn to ask for help when I feel it is necessary.
3) I will compliment one co-worker every week.
4) I will disagree with a person’s view when I genuinely feel it. But I will let them finish their thoughts.
5) When friends ask me what I want to do, I will tell them directly instead of saying “What would you like to do?”

Effective Way 2: Be Assertive With Yourself First

Learn to act assertively on your own. If you’ve ever watched the movie Taxi, there’s a scene where Robert De Niro looks in the mirror and goes “Are you Looking at Me?”

He practices in front of the mirror to being more assertive in life. He acts in the way he wants to be. I’m not going to lie, for many people it’s going to feel like being really hokey and fake. But let’s face it if you can’t feel assertive about doing an exercise at home when there’s no one around and you feel silly about it, then that’s part of the big reason you can’t be assertive with other people. Have you noticed people who are assertive don’t mind being truly who they are. They don’t mind what other people are thinking about them.

You’ve got to step up and be assertive on your own, and this will help to start rewire the brain. It’s not going to be easy. It needs to be done consistently on a daily basis. Say to yourself, “I’m confident, assertive and I ROCK!” Say it until you mean it, because if you don’t believe it, how are other people going to believe you?

And you have to say it out loud, for some reason or other that I can’t remember, if we whisper thoughts in our own head we use the reptilian brain. A primitive area that tries to keep us safe, but when we say something out loud and mean it, we use our most intelligent part of our brain that is filled with creativity and courage. So yes, say it loud!

Effective Way 3: Choose Small Battles at First

I once mentored a student who had challenges being assertive. He decided to join a university club but felt that he wasn’t contributing much to the organization. He felt that he had a lot to offer and had so many great ideas. And he was ready to share them, but he was just a little too shy.

One day during a meeting he had the same idea as another person in the group. The other person spoke up and everyone raved about it, while my mentee quietly thought to himself what a great idea it would be but never shared it. He felt left out and in a way robbed from the experience of being able to share a wonderful idea. The following meeting, he did what he needed to do to be more assertive, he shared one idea vocally with his group, and he didn’t hold it in.

If you’re polite and courteous which are important, but want to build up your assertiveness, start off small. This can be when you’re at a meeting and someone asks for your idea, for you to actually share it. Whether you feel it’s a good idea or bad, you need to share it. When someone asks you where you want to go for dinner, tell them confidently that you would like to go here.

As you answer questions that people ask you, you will slowly develop more confidence in responding to others about your needs. Sometimes people imagine being assertive like being Donald Trump. That’s an unrealistic goal to work towards when you’re first starting out. Keep things simple when being assertive. And be patient, it’s a habit you’re trying to develop not a one night stand.

It’s hard being shy. The feeling of being stuck in this invisible box, where you’re ready to just break out of it with force. I used to be shy, and it wasn’t a place that I wanted to be. I wanted to have great friends, and be surrounded by interesting people. I wanted to be able to burst out of my shell and overcome my shyness, but a lot of times my low confidence took charge and I wouldn’t say much. I wouldn’t say a lot when meeting new people, I wouldn’t say much when I was at family dinners with my cousins, aunts and uncles. I was just…shy.

While I was researching for my book, Art of Conversation, I realized that while there is nothing wrong with being shy, there is an inherent danger of being shy in a society that values interpersonal communications. People often mistaken shy people for being cold.

The Trouble with Being Shy

While it’s understandable that people like to take things slowly in a new social environment, there are some setbacks to this way of thinking. The set back is this – you only get one chance to make a great first impression. Either you take responsibility to create that impression, or people create it for you.

Many shy people shed their shyness with people they see frequently, however the issue is that your first impression to others can make a difference in the number of friends you make, and the quality of your interactions.

I’ve had friends of mine who have told me that they’ve met others who seemed cold when they first met. They would try their best to open these people up by sharing themselves, and asking them questions about who they are. But even when they asked open ended questions they often replied back in one word answers or they seemed very quiet about it.

What makes it worse is that often these people who are quiet and don’t have much to say, also don’t smile nor keep eye contact with the person they are talking about. This is when they are often labelled “cold.”

What’s unfortunate is that the majority of these people who seem cold when they are first meet are not cold at all, instead they have grown up being shy, like myself. And because these people are shy, they have a tough time letting other people know that they are shy, and so others that meet them come to their conclusions very quickly.

How to Change Your Impression of Cold to Friendly

Tell People about Yourself:

You may indeed be a nice person, treat your family great, but if you’re not telling people about yourself when they ask you questions, and they’ve never seen you with your family, they’re not going to know that stuff about you. You have to open up and share your life. And at times that means you need to be vulnerable and tell people.

While I don’t believe it’s a great idea to share your whole life, sharing a bit of your personality will make people see you as more friendly.

Some other tips from my book, Art of Conversation E-book, that people can use them to help improve their first impression if they are shy.

1) Smile – the reason why shy people are cold is because the lack of smiling. I have noticed when I’m working with international students who don’t speak English well, but gave a warm smile more often made me feel comfortable and relaxed. While the international students that didn’t smile came off as stiff and awkward. Whether they spoke English or not was not the issue, it was the fact that the people that were smiling were making a genuine effort to connect with me.

2) Make Eye Contact – If I were to talk to people without making eye contact, I’m pretty sure people would wonder why I’m not looking at them. And after a while it would really bother people and destroy the connection they’re trying to build with me. If eye contact makes you uncomfortable slowly build towards it, or else people think you don’t care about them. And people need to know you care to feel that you’re friendly.

3) Do your best to answer questions- If you don’t try, you’re not going to accomplish anything. Giving more than a one or two word answer is important when you want to shed the image of being “cold.” Answer the question with some detail, and reveal a little personality in your answer.

One of the important things to shedding the image of being cold by people is to take it a step at a time. Just like a promotion that you would work for in a job, you need to continually improve your social skills. Set quality goals for yourself that will make you be more outgoing. And reward yourself for a job well done when you’ve accomplished a social goal.

I promise you when you follow these steps people are going to find you more enjoyable to chat with. What are some things that you believe people do to create a cold impression?

You’ve been invited to a party where it will be a fun and festive environment. There’s a lot of energy in the air, and the noise of people talking is getting you a little excited but also a nervous. Old friends of yourse are chatting and you want to dive in and get to know some more people at the party. The inevitable question arises:

What are some good party conversation starters?

Party Conversation Starters for Warming Up the Crowd

Here are two conversation questions to get things started that will help you get socially warmed up at a party. These are safe questions in which you can ask anyone and you’re guaranteed that they will answer.

1) How do you know the host of the party?
2) Who else do you know at this party?

These questions are designed to help you understand the dynamics of the people at the party and how people are familiar with each other.

You may end up meeting a person who knows half the people at the party in which case that person could introduce you to more people. Or you may find out that the person has been invited out by one single friend and this may give you the opportunity to introduce that person to people you know.

The goal of being at being a good party attendee is to be friendly and fun.

Have Your Friend(s) Introduce You

If you went with another friend to the party, have your friend introduce you to another person. If you’re there with a friend, there’s a chance that your friend knows people that you don’t know. When your friend introduces you to other people ask him to introduce you with style.

If you both don’t know people, then go up and introduce yourselves to another group of two people or another person standing by themselves. Often people are shy and are waiting for others to initiate the conversation. But after you’ve warmed them up, they will enjoy chatting with you.

Fun Party Conversation Starters to Ask to take Fun to the Next Level

Let’s say that you’ve introduced yourself to a few people. You are looking to keep the festive mood going at the party and you have created. Here are a few interesting party conversation questions you can ask to keep the conversation going.

4) What has been the best party you have been to?
5) If you had an unlimited budget to host your own party, what would it be like?
6) If you could invite three celebrities to a party who would they be?
7) If you were to throw a theme party, what kind of theme would you have?
8 ) Who would the three people who are presently dead that you would love to invite to a party?
9) What’s your dream job that you would love?
10) What’s one talent that you have that people don’t know about?

People may not be used to these types of questions and will probably need time to think about it. In some cases the person may not even know the answer because the question is so different. If that’s the case, relax , and just answer your own question to get the ball rolling.

Next time you’re at a party then give these questions a shot and see what kind of answers you get.

What do you believe are some good party conversation starters?

For more great ways to ask questions, check out the free sample chapter on Asking Great Questions from my book Art of Conversation: Enhance Your Charisma for Success