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Are You a Wimp?

Experts offer tips on assertiveness at home, at work, and everywhere else.

It's 5:05 on a Friday. You're buttoning your coat as you hurry to the exit of your office building. But behind you, the door to your supervisor's office rattles open. You can sense his approach. You know what he's going to ask. But this time you'll be strong. After all, you've had absolutely unbreakable plans for months.

Yet when your boss taps your shoulder and asks — again! — to come into work on Saturday morning, your backbone transforms into overcooked linguini. The words spill out of your mouth before you even know you're speaking. "Sure, no problem," you hear yourself chirp. Once again, with a few words, you've ruined your weekend.

Sound familiar?

Well, you might be a wimp. But the good news is that it's a treatable condition. In order to help the countless self-diagnosed wimps out there, WebMD got some advice from psychologists who specialize in helping people learn assertiveness and how to — at least occasionally — say no.

The Many Faces of the Wimp

While some of us are universal wimps — cowed and unassertive in every arena of our lives — a lot of people are selective wimps, says Sharon Greenburg, PhD, a psychologist in Chicago. A milquetoast at work can be bossy, or even tyrannical, at home. A confident go-getter will stammer and sweat every time she has to return something to a store.

So where are you at your most wimpy?

• With people who work under you? When a person who works for you does a shoddy job on a report, do you confront him about the problem, or do you stay late and rewrite it yourself?
  
  
• With your family? Can just the hint of disapproval in your mother's voice make you upend your schedule, skipping out on long-standing plans with your boyfriend so you can attend your second-cousin's second baby shower?
  
  
• With your friends? Are you always giving friends a ride to the airport or helping them move, even when they never offer anything in return?
  
  
• With your children? When you need to run some errands and your toddler stoutly refuses to put on his hat on a wintry day, do you risk the potential tantrum or decide to stay home?
  
  
• With strangers? When you walk out of the supermarket and realize that the cashier gave you $5 less change than you were supposed to get, do you go back in, or slink to your car?

Wimps come in all varieties. The archetypal wimp is, of course, a guy — the poor wretch who gets sand kicked in his face by the high school quarterback. But the experts say that women can face particular problems.

"Women are more likely to have trouble sticking up for themselves," says Greenburg, who has taught many groups on assertiveness. "There's still this expectation that women are supposed to be caring and nurturing that can make it hard for them to get their own needs met."

Being a wimp usually has a short-term advantage. If you never say no, you never need to displease anybody.

The Problem With Wimping Out

If you avoid conflict, everyone will find you agreeable.

But in the long run, it's not a good way to live your life. People unskilled in assertiveness often keep grudges and build up anger, says Elizabeth Stirling, PhD, a practicing psychologist in Santa Fe, N.M. That can leak out in all sorts of ways. Without meaning to, you may wind up taking out your frustration on people who don't deserve it. You may begin to smolder with passive-aggressiveness.

You may even start to get physical symptoms: headaches, stomach problems, and so on. "People can really get sick from this stress," Stirling tells WebMD. So in every way, wimpiness is bad for your health.

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