Okay and not okay

- The second big assertiveness theory is the idea of being OK or not OK. Now, this also came from Eric Bern, and then Thomas Harris wrote a famous book called I'm OK - You're OK. Now, personally, I don't find that book a very easy book to read. I wouldn't say it's a popular book. It's more of an academic book, but the title I'm OK - You're OK is a brilliant, classic title, and it is a fantastic theory. So the idea is that I can be either OK or not about myself. And then also I can have a view about you, whether you're OK or whether you're not OK, so you get a two-by-two box. So let's just understand this a little bit. Am I OK or not as a person? I've got to decide that. And the word OK is quite important. So I, ideally, would be OK about myself, but it doesn't mean that I think I'm perfect, or that I'm great, or that I'm better than you. It just means that I think I'm OK. And that's what we should aim for. I should maybe give myself seven or eight out of 10 or something like that, whatever that means. And most people are actually not very OK about themselves. So for example, if you hear your voice on voicemail on an answer phone, do you think "Oh, sounding sexy," or do you think, "Oh no. Is that my voice? Ew." And most people don't like the sound of their own voice. And if you see yourself in the mirror, do you think "Oh, looking good today," or do you think, "Oh no. Is that me? Oh, look at the size of my nose," or whatever. Most people don't like their noses. Apparently the nose is one of the most hated parts of the body. But the thing is if you don't like the sound of your voice, and if you don't like what you look like, if you don't like your own face, then what hope have you got for being OK about yourself? What hope have you got being OK about your personality and all your habits and things as well? And if you're not OK about yourself, it's going to lead to problems when you interact with other people. So ideally we would try to be in the OK box about ourselves, and the foundation of assertiveness really is to be OK about yourself, because then you're going to stand up for your rights and all the sort of things that assertiveness is talking about. So the other axis on this box is whether other people are OK or not. So this is the "you're OK or you're not OK." And ideally we would be OK about other people, or at least our starting point would be to give people the benefit of the doubt, and to think "Well, this person means well, probably." So if somebody's dog jumps up at you, for example, do you immediately think "Oh, the owner's rubbish. This is a bad dog owner, this person," or do you think "Well, they're probably a perfectly nice person, and maybe they're having trouble training their dog, or maybe the dog just suddenly did that and it doesn't normally do it." So would you give the person the benefit of the doubt? Or when you're driving, if somebody pulls out in front of you, do you think "Oh, they're an idiot. They're not OK." Or do you think "Well, maybe they're really in a hurry," or maybe they didn't see you. Maybe they were an OK person really. And so you could see how if you tend to think that people are not OK, then that is a naturally aggressive position to start with. "Ugh, the guy's in idiot." Whereas the assertive person would be calm and fair, and we'd think "Well, maybe that person's got their reasons" and I might ask them what their reason is, or I might tell them I'm not happy about their behavior, but the point is I'm sure that deep down they mean well and they're a decent person. So if you look at the four combinations, you've got "I'm OK and you're not," and that's aggressive. You've got "I'm not OK, but you are," and that's submissive, or or sometimes called passive, and clearly that's going to be a problem as we go through life. And then you've got the worst one of all, which is "I'm not OK, and you're not OK either." That's actually said to be an unsustainable box. So in the book they call that the suicide box. So if you've got a belief that everybody's awful and that you are as well, why live? And teenagers sometimes go through this phase because they hate themselves cause they're spotty and they can't get a girlfriend or whatever, but they also hate their parents because their parents have got no dress sense and are so old-fashioned and so horrible trying to make them eat food they don't want to eat or whatever it is. Won't let them stay out all night partying... And if you hate yourself and you hate your parents, then that doesn't leave a lot. Luckily, most people come through that phase, of course, and they realize that actually they are OK, and they can manage to interact successfully in the world, and they also realize that their parents are OK really. And all right, they're a bit old-fashioned, but they mean well and they're doing the best for their kids. So hopefully you come through that fog, and really, we don't want to spend long in that not OK box. And then finally, we've got the ideal box, which is "I'm OK, and you're OK." And we might disagree about things or there might be misunderstandings, but basically we're both OK people and we can work this out, and that's where assertiveness should be. We're all not OK in some situations. There are times when we know that we're not good at doing something, or we've done something bad, but you don't want to be in that box too much of the time. And sometimes other people aren't OK. I mean, if you're being mugged or something, then the other person is clearly not an OK person. But the main thing is at least your starting point should be that the other person's OK. So games players involve some positions on this OK/not OK box. And sometimes they're real positions and sometimes they're only pretend ones. So for example, if you were a games player, you might be a persecutor, which is "I'm OK and you're not," but you might pretend that you're a victim, which is I'm in the "I'm not OK" box. So when you say, "Oh, it's so unfair what you just did," you're kind of saying you're a victim, but there's an element of persecute there as well, isn't there? It's all starting to get quite complicated now. And similarly, the games player might pretend to be a rescuer, which is where you're not OK, but I'm going to help you. And if I was playing a game with you, I might pretend to be a rescuer if you're not OK, but actually, really, I'm persecuting you cause you're not OK. And the difference is really that when I'm persecuting you, I'm basically saying I'm OK and you're not. So I'll come to this later with examples. It's bad enough being in these boxes without people jumping around between them for fun and pretending they're in one when they're in another one, and that's what games players do. We're going to look at real example of games later, and you'll be able to then relate it back to those OK/ not OK boxes. The objective of assertiveness is to be in the "I'm OK, and you're also OK" box all the time, and especially as your starting position.