5 Ways You Can Practice Building Self-Trust
Start small, and simply repeat.
I believe one of the most important relationships you’ll ever have, is the one with yourself, period. If you don’t like, respect, and trust yourself, it’ll be tough to trust others and life.
Most of our distrusting feelings stem from childhood. Someone prominent in your life, either a parent, teacher, or friend, let you down, betrayed you, disappointed you, or were really good at over-promising and never delivering. Just speaking from personal experience here, and I’m sure you can relate.
Your responsibility now as an adult is to heal these betrayal wounds. You do this by taking the time to process them (not suppress them) so that you can let go of these past experiences and move on with your life in a more productive, optimistic, and full of curiosity way.
The more productive, optimistic, and curious you can be day to today, the more you’ll do the things you need to do to build trust within. All of us can trust life, even through the most uncertain of times, and this starts with getting outside of your comfort zone trying new ways of doing and being.
In this article, I explain five ways you can practice building more self-trust. Please don’t overwhelm yourself, be willing to start small so that your self-trust building practice will feel sustainable.
Make a weekly commitment plan and follow through on it.
One of the best ways to build self-trust is to make a few weekly non-negotiable personal commitments to yourself, put it in writing, then sign and date your commitment plan. This is one of the first steps I take my coaching clients through, and let me tell you, it’s powerful.
It’s nearly impossible to show up for yourself each day if you don’t know what that looks like and what that requires of you. That’s why so many women struggle with second-guessing themselves and having low self-worth.
It’ll be a lot easier for you to make yourself a priority and build this amazing, loving, and trusting relationship with yourself if you make it non-negotiable.
Create a “My Weekly Commitment Plan” document with three sections labeled “morning, afternoon, and evening” and fill in those sections with at least one action you’re committed to doing for yourself each day during that time for the next seven days. Sign and date it. Then put it where you can view it morning, afternoon, and evening.
Don’t knock this exercise until you try it. After you try it and you do pretty dang on well with it, assess how you feel about yourself and the progress you’ve made over the past 30 days.
Are you feeling more confident, grounded, and like you can believe in and trust yourself?
I bet you the answer is yes.
Choose one bad habit you need to stop and replace with a healthy one.
Here’s the truth, we don’t “quit” old habits as much as we replace them. You don’t just stop or quit doing something. What you do is “replace” that old action or habit with something else.
The goal is to replace that bad habit with instead a “healthy one.” Again, you have to be committed and invested in becoming a better version of yourself. Just telling yourself, you’re sick of whatever isn’t going to cut it.
Please take out a sheet of paper, fold it in half, and draw a line from top to bottom. On the left-hand side, write down five bad habits you’d like to stop. And on the right-hand side, write down what you can “replace” these bad habits with.
For example, say you want to quit late-night munching after dinner in front of your laptop over Netflix. To the right of that bad habit, you would write down a healthy replacement, something like “enjoy a cup of hot herbal tea and one square of dark chocolate and lights out by 10:00 pm.”
This example was actually a bad habit that I had for years. It took me a bit to get used to replacing wine and chips with tea and a dark chocolate square, but I did it. Limiting myself to just one Netflix episode a night or two if the episodes were only thirty minutes long helped a ton. And having a really good book on my nightstand helped out a lot too. I’m asleep by 10:00 pm most nights now. That’s a significant improvement from midnight.
Do you think establishing a new healthy habit will make you feel like you can believe in and trust yourself more?
Decide a new skill you want to learn and start working on it.
Today now more than ever before, it’s crucial to be learning and developing new skills in life. I think we all can agree with that. Coronavirus has knocked most off their feet. Many people are having to start new careers, become handier around the house, learn how to cook healthier, and strike up and live in more their creative right-sided brain. I’ll tell you this much. I’m so glad I decided to build and develop my skill in writing.
Several years ago, I learned from my life-coach how important and valuable writing could be for me. How powerful journaling almost every day was for my mental and emotional health, and how it could help me tremendously in my career.
She was 100% accurate. Writing has been something I’ve leaned on every single day to help me grow personally and professionally. I’m not a New York’s Time Bestseller or anything like that, but hey, the more I continue applying my writing skill, the better I’ll become over time, and who knows, I might just be a New York’s Time Bestseller in the future.
What new skill have you always been interested in learning?
How do you think you’ll feel once you get started practicing it?
Do you think it would help with building your self-trust muscle?
Set boundaries with that specific someone in your life.
We leak out energy all over the place when we lack boundaries with specific people in our life. You could wake up in the morning and already feel exhausted because your heart is heavy and you’re dreading the day.
Most people feel depleted and fed up with their work or life by noon. This isn’t good at all. It might be because you’re resisting being in a specific environment or having a conversation with someone you know really needs to happen.
When we avoid going somewhere or talking to someone about something that is upsetting or bothering us, we are hiding from life and are setting ourselves up for a depressing or anxious day and future. This is not your destiny — promise.
And I also promise that setting a boundary doesn’t have to be so difficult; it’s really just your brain making it harder than it has to be. It’s that dang on mind getting in the way again.
Setting a boundary with someone is having a simple conversation, a simple conversation that goes something like, “Hey, when you talk to me like this, it makes me feel (fill in the blank.) I’m tired of feeling this way, and I don’t believe I deserve it either. This type of behavior and reactions from you have gone on for far to long and it’s very hurtful. I feel it’s best and healthy for both of us to keep our distance for a while. I hope you can understand. Take care of yourself.”
That’s it. You don’t need to do or say anything further. You can start and stop there, period. You’ll need to have the courage and be brave for a few moments so you can speak what’s been on your chest. But, once you’ve said and expressed your feelings in a calm, respectful, and self-honoring tonality, you get back the energy you need and deserve to live a more fulfilling and peaceful life.
Do you think it’s worth the temporary discomfort to set a much-needed boundary like this with that specific someone?
How do you think this will make a difference in your life?
Do you think you’d begin trusting in yourself again or for the first time ever?
Repeat. Continue to stretch and grow yourself.
Finally, repeat the practices above as you feel called to do so. Don’t just do these self-trust practices once; make it a lifestyle.
Here’s another truth, the more you show up for yourself day in and day out, the harder it will be to betray and let yourself down. That’s because you’ve been working so hard on cultivating a new standard for yourself and your future.
It’s hard to go back to an old life that was full of giving your power away, fear, excuses, and victim mentality once you’ve tasted what it feels like to be empowered.
I hear people say and ask a lot, “How do I discover my purpose in life?” I firmly believe the answer to that question is, you start with rediscovering your true self-worth, value, and confidence within. And you find these three things or feelings within by learning how to trust yourself.
Are you ready to get to work on building your self-trust?
Well, I sure do hope so. Know you have my full faith and support in doing just that.
Building self-trust isn’t something that has to take years. It just has to take you consciously wanting to be in a better and healthier relationship with yourself. Do you?
