There are many life lessons we are taught as we grow up, such as standing up for yourself. Sometimes these life lessons are learned through direct tuition and mentorship, and some through life experience.
Of course, some lessons don’t immediately stick, and it might take several failures or obstacles for us to truly get the point. Also, it’s no great failing in a human being to make mistakes – we all do, and we all do until our old age.
That being said, sometimes life lessons are worth considering, especially if they seem universal and you have yet to fully practice them. Not everyone learns how to stand up for themselves in life, because not everyone has a strong character from the offset.
Even those with meek dispositions can benefit from learning how to defend themselves, however. Thanks to the way modern society is set up, we don’t have to play by barbarian rules to do so.
But how can you exercise your self-defense in life, in a range of different areas? In this guide, you will get a primer on how to behave this way in three different life scenarios. This advice could help you if going through a difficult patch.
How to Work on Standing Up For Yourself
Know Your Legal Rights
Knowing your legal rights is the first step in the process, and it’s surely one of the most important steps. It’s important to know if you’re acting within legal guidelines in many respects.
For instance, knowing consumer law can help you more accurately complain if your consumer rights are being abused. It may help you assign a personal injury lawyer to a case if neglected at work. If ever in doubt, be sure to research online what possible precedents you can use in your favor.
There’s No Need To ‘Accept’
Remember that in life, there’s no need to give in to someone unless you have previously accepted their authority (such as in a work setting), or unless they have the law on their side. This can be important to know if someone oversteps and expects you to be okay with that.
You may encounter this situation if someone takes your table reservations without asking, gives you less than what you paid for, or simply wishes to treat you harshly. This can be important to know, because when you don’t immediately feel as though you have to accept this treatment, you can actively defend against it.
Don’t Set A Precedent
The worst thing you can do is allow for a precedent to be set. It might be that someone in your office made a comment to humiliate you, and instead of addressing it, you smiled and took it.
This means that next time, it will happen again. It doesn’t mean you have to cause conflict with people every single time they do something you don’t like. Causing conflict each time may only cause more difficulty.
Sometimes, however, shutting things down as soon as they appear can show people you’re not that kind of person and that you won’t tolerate that type of behavior.
It is clear that standing up for yourself is an important life skill. If you don’t do it, people will walk all over you and treat you badly. They’ll say hurtful things, inconvenience you, and take advantage of you.
Use these tips to get ahead of the problem. Standing up for yourself will change your life for the better.
Great advice — and I agree that not setting a precedent and tackling something straight away is a very important part of standing up for ourselves. It’s a good skill to be able to use as we can use it for many different scenarios — it’s confidence-building too! Thanks so much for sharing!
I’m glad you enjoyed this! Thank you for your comment! And yes, it definitely is confidence-building!