Building Unshakeable Self-Trust: A Guide to Believing in Yourself
Trust is often perceived as something we extend to others - partners, family, friends, and colleagues. However, a foundational element for healthy relationships and personal well-being is the trust we cultivate within ourselves. This article explores the concept of self-trust, why it's essential, and provides practical strategies to build and strengthen it.
Why Self-Trust Matters
Self-trust is the bedrock of any healthy, strong relationship. If you don’t trust your partner, you’re not going to last long, or you will continue bearing through a relationship that doesn’t fulfill you. It is about firmly believing in our own reliability, truth, ability, and strength. It is the ability to make empowered decisions based on our own inner knowing, rather than seeking external approval, validation, or permission. It is believing that, deep down, we do have the answer when it comes to what’s best for us and we are capable of getting back up when we fall. It's taking radical responsibility for our own life.Self-trust provides clarity and confidence in our choices. It allows us to approach experiences without fear of self-punishment, openly examining our actions and learning from mistakes. Self-trust frees up the energy that is necessary to welcome new insights. Now, no longer so fearful of being open and present in our lives, the anxiety that robbed us of self-trust has been transformed to eager anticipation of future learning.
Understanding the Roots of Self-Doubt
Many individuals struggle with self-trust. Some may feel they are always wrong, don’t fit in, or lack answers. This can lead to a reliance on others and a neglect of one's own feelings and needs.
There are a variety of factors that contribute to the erosion of self-trust. While we may start out with a strong sense of self-trust, body image, and self-esteem, media messaging and social comparison can quickly erode those beliefs. Research has shown that more than 50 percent of six to eight year old girls worry about their weight [1]. It’s estimated that the average person is exposed to between 500 and 5000 ads each day. Female children and young adults may be particularly vulnerable. However, it’s not just media portrayal of societal ideals that influence our perceptions. We also rely on social comparisons to those we know to help shape our idea of who we are and how we measure up. These social comparisons allow for externalization of our values, desires and even our worth. A study that examined social comparisons with emotions and behavior found that the more frequently a person made social comparisons, the more likely they were to experience envy, guilt, regret, and defensiveness, as well as to lie, to blame others, and to have unmet cravings [4].
Sometimes, past experiences can diminish self-trust. If, at some point in our life, what we felt was intuitively right was made wrong- we made it mean that we could not be trusted with our own answers. Our questions needed to be answered by the external world. Unconsciously, we may have chosen to rely on anything and everything outside of ourselves to finally point us in the "right" direction- even when it meant betraying our truth.Until we (obviously) got lost: following someone else’s path is how we deviate from our own.
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Practical Strategies for Building Self-Trust
The journey to self-trust is often long and complicated, but it is a worthwhile endeavor. Here are some practical steps you can take to cultivate greater self-reliance and confidence:
1. Affirm Your Worth
Simply tell yourself that you are enough. This may seem difficult, but it is a crucial first step. Say it out loud, in the mirror, eyeball to eyeball. Even if you never write the next great novel or make a million dollars, you've already done enough. Who you are at your core is enough. You don’t need permission or anyone else’s approval to believe that you are enough. You are the only YOU you have, and you can choose any time to begin accepting and loving who you are.
2. Work With Your Feelings, Not Against Them
Denying your feelings won’t make them go away. Admit when you feel sad, mad, or jealous. Acknowledge your feelings-the good, the bad, and the ugly-in order to build self-trust. Once you acknowledge them, you can slowly begin to work through your feelings to discover what’s at the heart of them. Forget what you “know” because it’s irrelevant.
3. Tell Yourself the Truth with Compassion
In order to trust yourself, you need to tell the truth. Be honest with yourself. Being honest doesn’t mean saying to yourself, “Hey Rhonda, you’re such an idiot for forgetting to take out the garbage again! That’s negative self-talk, and it is completely unwelcome. Instead, come at it from a place of compassion. Would you say that to your kid, partner, or parent if they forgot to do something? No, you wouldn’t. Show that same compassion to yourself, but at the same time, don’t let yourself off the hook. Instead, you might say, “Hey Rhonda, it seems like you often struggle to remember to take out the garbage with all of the other things you have going on. Be accountable to yourself because you are your own best friend. Mistakes are okay. Heck, they’re more than okay! They’re natural and they’re human! But don’t beat yourself up over them. It’s the honesty that will really help you dig deep into what's going on. Honesty will help you understand your needs, wants, and desires.
4. Set Boundaries Based on Your Personal Needs
Boundaries are important for self-care and self-trust. You need to care and protect yourself in order to build trust. Boundaries keep us from saying yes to our friend who asks if you’ll help them move for a third time this year. Boundaries ensure we speak up when someone infringes on our personal space. Fall back on your own personal needs. What do you need to feel happy, healthy, and fulfilled? Each person's own needs are different, and there’s no right or wrong answer. What boundaries do you need to set to make sure those needs are met? If one of your personal needs is honesty, what happens when someone lies to you? What are the consequences for breaking your trust? Forgiveness is healthy, but what happens if that someone lies to you time and time again? Developing boundaries and determining the consequences of having your boundaries crossed is trusting yourself to have your own back. You don’t need anyone to come to your rescue because you can trust YOU to be there for yourself.
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5. Spend Time Alone in Reflection
How often do you spend time alone? And I don’t mean sitting by yourself and watching TV. How often do you sit by yourself without distractions and reflect? The longer you ignore your thoughts, the more likely they are to cascade through you the first moment you’re not distracted, which means the longer you ignore your own thoughts, the more difficult it will be to spend time alone. In order to trust yourself, work through your own thoughts and self-doubt. I want you to take the time to be alone with yourself, and in time, grow to enjoy your own company. Because if you can’t communicate with yourself in a powerful way, how will you ever be able to communicate authentically with another?
6. Challenge Negative Self-Talk
If you want to trust yourself more, you have to get a handle on your habit of self-criticism and negative self-talk. People who have not learned to relate to their inner critical voice in a productive way will argue with it or comply with its indictments. The critical voice is one that questions every decision and choice. It’s the voice that wakes you up at night questioning your every move and word. It’s the voice that tells you all the things you “should” do or “have to” do. It’s the voice that says you’re lazy, unmotivated, awkward, weak, fat, etc. In fact, if the voice in our head was made into an actual person with whom we worked on a daily basis, not only would we avoid that person like the plague, but we’d likely lodge a complaint for emotional abuse as well. When we buy into the negative voice, we diminish our self-trust. Trying to escape the inner critic and ignoring it by drinking or drugging, or other distractions will empower it. The way to build self-trust is to relate to the inner critic and show it that it is taking a seed of truth and blowing it out of proportion. When we listen to the inner critic, relate to it, and educate it, we stand up to it.
7. Embrace Emotional Vulnerability
Because difficult emotions feel painful, our instinct is to avoid them. One of the best ways to break the habit of emotional avoidance and start to build emotional confidence is the practice of emotional vulnerability. The more you practice talking plainly about your emotions-instead of intellectualizing them-the more confident you will become in your ability to handle them.
8. Cultivate Realistic Expectations
With a little practice, you can literally update your expectations to be more realistic and achievable.If you’re constantly worrying about terrible things happening, you’re going to develop an overly negative picture of the future. For one thing, this slows your worry down because you can’t write nearly as fast as you can think.
9. Practice Gratitude Towards Yourself
And while it’s wonderful to express your gratitude toward other people, there’s no reason you can’t do the same thing for yourself. So, take a few minutes at the end of each day and jot down one or two things about yourself that you’re grateful for.
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10. Be Mindful in the Present Moment
There are so many opportunities all around us that are missed. If we live in a consciousness of regret, we live in the past. If we are fearful of the possibility of future suffering, we are living in the future. While bouncing back and forth between the past and the future, we are missing the present. As soon as we stop focusing on the future, we will feel anxious and vulnerable. Worry is an expression of an imagined defense to keep trouble away. When we are present, we may feel unprotected. The challenge is to cultivate a courageous heart that can tolerate increasingly longer periods of presence. When we are in the present moment, it is the ultimate protection. The paradox is that it seems like dropping the protection that worry provides is dangerous and puts us at risk. But the vulnerability of pure presence is the ultimate sanctuary. When we are fully present, there is no fear.
11. Recognize and Embrace Your Uniqueness
We can’t be all of the things and choose everything to be good at. Find out what makes you unique. What do you love? What lights you up? What makes you excited? Mad? Fired up? Step into that. Make a list of all of the things you are curious or feel strongly about. Consider how often you are engaging in or trying the things on your list.
12. Listen to Your Body
Be aware of what you are feeling and experiencing. So often we ignore what our body is telling us. We’re hungry, but we tell ourselves we can’t eat. We’re tired, but we need to stay awake. We eat whatever food is served to us, because that’s the polite or expected thing to do. We eat food that we’re no longer hungry for, because it’s in front of us and tastes good. It’s time to stop. Spend some time listening to your body and yourself. Sleep when tired. Eat when hungry. Choose foods that make you feel your best. Cry when sad. Vent when angry. Set an alarm on your phone to go off periodically throughout the day.
13. Practice Disconnecting
If we are being bombarded with thousands of ads each day, it’s hard to find space and time that is ours alone. Create space in your life by carving out time each day to disconnect and be distraction free. You can do this by sitting in quiet meditating, enjoying a cup of coffee or tea, being in nature, or any way you like to cultivate quiet and stillness. Give yourself enough time and space to turn up the volume on your own internal voice. Carve out the first five minutes of each day to sit in silence.
14. Challenge External Expectations
So much of what we believe we desire is based on the expectations of others. Maybe your parents or family members always reinforced your looks, and so you hold expectations around that as your identity. Maybe you believed you needed to have a high-powered professional job to be successful and that would lead to happiness. Where did these expectations come from? Are they even yours? Consider how attached you are to that expectation and goal. Do you believe you will only be happy if you are in a relationship? Do you find yourself attached to and obsessing over weighing a certain amount? Do you feel as though there is always something between you and happiness? If you find yourself getting attached to a particular idea or outcome, get curious. Ask yourself, Why do I think I need this?
15. Keep a Gratitude Journal
What are you great at? What is something that is uniquely yours? In what ways are you moving toward the things you value and desire for yourself? Keep a gratitude journal. Maybe what we need to seek more than any comparison, any answer, or any fix is this: belief. Belief that we hold the answers. Belief in ourselves and what we desire.
16. One Task at a Time
Take on one task at a time. Trust yourself to take on that task, even for 2 minutes. You don’t have to finish, just start. With practice, you’ll go longer, up to 30 minutes.
17. Forgive Yourself
The first step of self-care, from what I’ve learned, is forgiving ourselves for the ways we’ve hurt ourselves in the past. It’s the first step in rebuilding any relationship worth repairing. Just because your mind changes, or feels scattered, doesn’t mean that you deserve to talk down to yourself. Ideas come and go - that’s natural! It’s not because you are untrustworthy, flaky, or less deserving of celebration.Just like being compassionate and forgiving for another person who may have harmed us, we can focus that same attitude towards ourselves. When we demonstrate that we have learned from the mistake, regret evaporates. Then self-forgiveness and self-trust automatically occur.
18. Physical Self-Care
Physical self-care is important here, too. The comparison game is real, and I’m distancing myself from social media because of it. Instagram in particular, I’ve found, muddies the water between where my values lie and which accomplishments and aesthetics the algorithm is serving me. I feel a lot clearer on who I am when I’m not endlessly scrolling. To replicate this feeling IRL, I try to prioritize alone time.
19. Ask for Help
Ultimately one of the most important ways we can support ourselves is, funny enough, asking for help. If you feel something is worth pursuing, but don’t know the next step, reach out to friends, family, or people who’ve been there.
20. Set Healthy Expectations
If we’re struggling to set healthy expectations for ourselves, we can instead practice accountability with the smallest things. Tell yourself you will shower today, and then shower. Or decide that you’ll step one foot out the door today, and do it. I find it’s a balance between understanding my values as a whole person, and zooming in on the minutiae of achievable goals to build myself back up.
21. Know When to Stop
In the end, though, self-trust isn’t just about doing the things you say you’re going to do. It’s also stopping when you’re ready to stop. Don’t keep forcing yourself to do something you no longer have reason or motivation to do (like how I’m still feeding my sourdough starter, even though I haven’t used it in years). Acknowledge when you’ve reached your limits, physically, mentally, emotionally - and pause for a bit of rest when it’s time. When you trust yourself, you’ll know when it’s time to rest.
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