It doesn’t mean projecting your personality at all times, making you seem like a snotty bitch. It means gaining people’s respect on your own opinions, feelings, and all the things you have to say. When you are talking to your colleagues and officemates, you can’t let them just cut you off when you know you have a major point or argument. You should know how to believe in the things you have to say and learn to be assertive so that people around you will start to listen to what you have to say.

Believe in yourself.

If you don’t have self-confidence, it will show. And people will just start taking you for granted and not take you seriously. How do you expect them to listen to you, when you yourself don’t really think you’re saying something worth anyone’s time? Being assertive is speaking in a certain tone wherein you command people to be silent and take heed of your opinions. Being assertive is looking at people in the eyes when you speak, making sure they comprehend your ideas. Being assertive is you, believing that your ideas are so good that it’s worth sharing with other people, knowing that they’ll learn something from it.

Respect your personality

Acknowledge and celebrate the fact that you are different from others. This difference will always bring about difference in views, and judgments. You can’t always agree with the crowd because you can think for yourself. Respecting that you are a person who has a set of beliefs and principles will guide you into taking a stand whatever happens. Being confident in the kind of person you know you are gives you freedom from worrying what other people might think about you, or what other people might say because you just don’t care. The important thing is that you know who you are.

Read good books.

Surrounding yourself with an environment that loves knowledge and learning is a good way to shape yourself into the kind of person who knows a lot about important things and can converse about significant issues. It will add on you a ton of self-confidence if you have read what wise people before you have written about things that mattered to them. You will know and take on the passion that they have on conveying the things they wrote about.