The top reason people shy away from speaking up and expressing their needs, boundaries, desires, true thoughts, and feelings are their fears of speaking up.

This happens especially with those who don't like to confront others or to engage in conflict because of these fears, that many are very aware of but don't know how to overcome. Any people pleasers out there? Nice people?

When you don't fully express yourself and speak up for yourself and for your needs over and over again, you end up feeling misunderstood and disrespected. And that leads to you also feeling overwhelmed, resentful, and frustrated.

That is why people who don't speak up feel less connected to other people, are taken advantage of regularly, and waste most of their potential. They work more, get paid less, get less recognition, less appreciation, and still get yelled at more.

The top four fears of speaking up are the fear of coming across as rude, offensive, aggressive, or mean; the fear of being disliked; the fear of hurting people's feelings; and the fear of retaliation or backlash.

The good news is that these visceral speaking up fears that feel so real are in reality unjustified. You can speak up and still avoid all the negative things on the other side of those fears.

Here the 4 top speaking up fears debunked.

09:42 Fear of coming across as rude, offensive, or aggressive

15:02 Fear of hurting people's feelings

17:57 Fear of not being liked

22:53 Fear of retaliation and backlash

Read the episode show notes on this at https://www.assertiveway.com/34

Get started with this free crash course on how to be assertive without being rude or these other resources here.

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