10 Ways To Increase Self-Trust
I’m on a self-trust journey, and the benefits are too great for you NOT to join me!
In my last blog, I discussed the importance of self-trust. Now, that’s all very well knowing we need it, but how do we develop it?
I see self-trust like a muscle, and want to share the ten things I’m now doing in my life to make it ripped!
One: Do what you say you’re going to do
This applies to yourself and other people, since even when we break our trust to others, we’re still knocking our self-trust.
If you do what you say you will, you’re going to be increasing your self-trust.
Two: Set realistic goals
How often are your goals so huge that you don’t hit them? A goal-setting process is a commitment to yourself that you’ll achieve it.
It’s great to have the massive goals, but you also need to make sure there are plenty of ‘check box’ goals along the way. I break down the bigger goals into small ones that I can achieve more easily.
The other thing we can think about doing is setting a goal relatively low, and then stretching it when you hit the lower goal. The more ‘wins’ you can show your subconscious, the more you’ll see yourself as trustworthy.
Three: Keep a trustworthy inner circle
If the people around you are undermining your trust in them, they don’t deserve a place in your life. Boundaries are key in elevating your self-esteem, and surrounding yourself with people who fuel you is really important too.
The more self-awareness you develop, the better you’ll be able to recognise manipulative people and situations. These are the situations that will deplete your self-trust, the longer you stay in them.
Four: Self-compassion
I shared in the previous blog how closely tied all the ‘selfs’ are (self-love, -worth, -esteem, -trust, etc.). If we knock one of those, we knock all of them, so if you’re not gracious to yourself, you’re not going to trust yourself.
Five: Be authentic
I’ve been notorious for trying to pretzel myself into all the things I believe others want me to be. I reached the stage where I didn’t know who I even was, and self-trust was elusive.
My subconscious couldn’t even trust me to show up as ‘me’, so how could it trust me in other areas of life?
Six: Focus on your strengths
I’m not saying to only do things that are in our wheelhouse: I’m unwilling to give up challenging myself. Like the goal setting, however, regular wins are important to building our self-trust.
We’re not always going to see successes, but making the most of the skills that we have will ensure we see as many as possible. The more wins we have, the more we can build the trust in ourselves that we’re a successful person.
Seven: Make decisions
I am notorious for asking for advice and doing what I’m told to. This can be useful, but a lot of the time it’s because I don’t trust myself to make the right decision. Of course, all it does is reinforce that I can’t trust my own thoughts, and must rely on others.
The first step in this for me has been moving from “Help! What do I do?” to “I am thinking about doing XYZ, what do you think?” Over time, I hope I will just be able to make the majority of my decisions without even seeking feedback.
Eight: Detach from outcomes
We often tie our self-esteem, and ultimately self-trust, with the outcomes of things we do. For example, when I try to lose weight and don’t hit the number I want, I blame myself. My subconscious then hears that I can’t be trusted to lose weight.
If I could see weight release as something I aim for, without attaching my whole inner psyche and self-esteem to it, I won’t get hurt if I don’t hit a number on the scales.
I hope for the outcome, and I expect it, but I don’t tie it up with who I am as a person.
Nine: Celebrate success
When did you last celebrate yourself?
There will always be accomplishments you can celebrate. Maybe you see something as ‘too trivial’ or ‘everyone else can do that already’? Those are my two greatest reasons for not celebrating my wins!
Use yourself as a benchmark. Those successes aren’t trivial to you. And who cares if others could do what you did, this isn’t about their achievement?!
Ten: Forgive yourself
This is something else we are often reticent to do, but it’s as important as celebrating the wins.
We will all have moments where things don’t go as planned. Instead of getting into self-blame territory that erodes self-trust, what about if we could simply take responsibility and learn from what happened?
Think about someone who makes a mistake, aren’t you more likely to trust them again if they take responsibility and show that they’ll do it differently in future?
Conclusions
I am working on all ten of these things because I truly believe that trusting myself more will change my life. I want to become more aware of the areas in which I don’t trust myself, and start working on those.
As I said in the last blog, the research is out there to show that we become better human beings when we have self-trust — both for ourselves, and others. It’s time to change.
Originally published at https://wildeaboutwellbeing.com on November 28, 2020.
