Build the skills to set clear boundaries and communicate assertively - knowing your rights, challenging the beliefs that get in the way, and practising new responses one small step at a time.
Assertiveness and Boundary-Setting
PreviewStart by mapping the situations where you find it hard to be assertive or hold a limit.
Situations where you struggle to set a boundary or speak up
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Assertiveness sits between two unhelpful extremes. Passive responding ignores your own needs to keep the peace. Aggressive responding pursues your needs at the expense of the other person. Assertive responding respects both - you state your view, feelings, or request honestly and directly, while still respecting the other person.
Take one situation from above. How would each style sound?
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Which style do you most often fall into under pressure?
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Difficulty being assertive is often held in place by beliefs about what being assertive means about us. Let's examine one of those beliefs as if it were a hypothesis to test, rather than a fact.
A belief that stops you being assertive
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How strongly do you believe this right now?
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Evidence that seems to support this belief
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Evidence against this belief, or that doesn't fit it
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A more balanced, realistic belief
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How strongly do you believe the original belief now?
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Assertiveness rests on a set of basic rights that apply to you just as much as to anyone else. Tick the ones that are hardest for you to believe you have - those are often the ones worth working on.
Rights I find hard to claim for myself
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Which right is hardest to believe, and why?
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These are the building blocks of assertive communication. Read each one, then draft your own version for a real situation.
Clear 'I' statement
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Saying no without over-justifying
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The broken-record technique
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Requesting a change in behaviour
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Like any skill, assertiveness is built through practice. Start deliberately small - choose low-stakes situations first and work up. Pick people and situations that are safe to practise with.
Your step-by-step practice plan, easiest first
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Which one will you try first, and what would count as a good-enough attempt?
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When you change how you respond, some people may push back - through guilt-tripping, pressure, sulking, or persistence. Planning for this in advance makes it easier to hold your boundary.
How might this person respond when you hold your boundary?
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Plan your response to common pressure tactics
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What can you say to yourself if you start to feel guilty or back down?
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This is a read-only preview. Sign up to assign it and let clients complete it on any device.
‘Assertiveness and Boundary-Setting’ is an interactive cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) worksheet, most often used in CBT for social anxiety. It is also commonly drawn on when working with low self-esteem.
It is designed to be used within therapy rather than as a standalone self-help tool: a therapist introduces it, works through it collaboratively, and helps make sense of what it surfaces. You can preview the full worksheet above, then assign it digitally for clients to complete between sessions on any device — or download it as a print-ready PDF.
Most people work through it in around 20 minutes. It moves through six short steps:
Completed on the Formulate platform, your client's answers are saved automatically and shared straight back to you, so you can review them before the next session rather than waiting for a paper copy to come back.
In common with other CBT methods, ‘Assertiveness and Boundary-Setting’ works by noticing the links between situations, thoughts, feelings, physical sensations and behaviour — and finding practical ways to change unhelpful patterns. The aim is not positive thinking but a clearer, shared understanding of what keeps a difficulty going — and practical, testable ways to change it.
Because it is a CBT tool it stays focused on the here-and-now links between thoughts, feelings, the body and behaviour, and it works best as one part of a wider course of therapy rather than as advice or a diagnosis.
This worksheet is grounded in established cognitive behavioural therapy theory and practice. Key sources include:
Formulate provides educational CBT resources for use with a qualified therapist. They are not a substitute for professional assessment, diagnosis, or crisis care.
If you need urgent help now:
Sign up free and send your client a link. They complete it on any device — you review their responses before the next session.
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