Trust yourself!
One of the most common reasons individuals struggle being truly confident is because they lack the ability to trust themselves. This lack of self trust keeps them playing small, second guessing themselves or never fully committing to what they want. ‘But what if something goes wrong?’ This is what most people who lack self trust say on a regular basis. On the surface thinking through things thoroughly, reducing risk to yourself and playing small feels safe and secure but it is abundant in regret. Living a life of ‘I could have, should have’ isn’t the key to happiness so here are 10 ways you can work on your self trust daily.
Practice self-compassion: Treat yourself with kindness and understanding, as you would a good friend.
It might feel like you are letting yourself off the hook but essentially you are ensuring that you are motivated by goodness not by failure, fear or regret. It allows you to enjoy each moment and be grateful for what you do have. When self trust is significantly low you may need to be kind to yourself about all the really little things. Perhaps you need to give yourself a high five for waking up 1 minute earlier even though you had planned to rise 1 hour earlier. Maybe you need to write down the great things you say you would do and did do today. Start small.
Set achievable goals. Sometimes your goals are really big, hairy and audacious and that is amazing but it can become overwhelming and lead you to thinking you are not making any progress at all. Break that awesome goal into the tiniest of actions and focus on how each one of these is getting you closer to accomplishment. The more you do these tiny things the more you remind your brain, ‘I do what I say’. This will change the way you feel immeasurably.
Keep promises to yourself. One practice I partake in daily is telling myself what commitment I will make to myself for today (just one day), in the same instance I tell myself what I am proud of for the following day. It brings great joy to know that what I’m proud of tomorrow I did today and i know it will for you to.
Acknowledge and accept your feelings. You are going to let yourself down at some point simply because you aren’t perfect. You may become frustrated, annoyed, impatient, disheartened, sad, hopeless even but feeling these emotions and accepting them will allow you to learn more about yourself and be comfortable feeling ‘unpleasant’ emotions.
Cultivate self-care practices that are unique to you. Millions of people jump on the popularity bandwagon of self- care thinking that doing what many love will help you too however self-care practices must be specific to you and your life. Without this personalisation you can feel defeated, get undesired (or no) results and still have the same level of self-trust and love you have now. Make sure you are doing what you want to do for you, your body, mind, spirit and soul.
Surround yourself with positive influences. This comes up so often in personal development because it is so influential on your success, health and happiness. Start thinking about who in your friends circle or network trusts themselves and then spend more time around them. When you see others being able to easily commit to the life they want to lead and showcasing integrity ask them ‘how do you do it?’ The only stupid question is the one you don’t ask.
Learn to forgive yourself. There are times where you will fall short but developing greater trust now isn’t going to be helped by thinking about all the time you didn’t follow through on what you said you would do.
Be honest with yourself. Are you happy with how you have behaved? Are you truly aiming to live a life that YOU want? Are you actually holding yourself accountable or letting yourself off the hook? Evaluate your thoughts and actions objectively, and reflect honestly at least 1 time per week (we teach you this in our coaching programs as well, its scheduled in to build a super positive habit).
Celebrate your successes. High performers often wait till the big goal is achieved that they don’t celebrate the process and the commitment, dedication and motivation it took to do all the little things. Become skilled at celebrating your successes.
Start a new day each day. Everyone can carry what happened in the past in to the next day- don’t. Decide when you put your feet on the ground for a new day that what happened yesterday happened and today is a clean slate.
Which one of these tips are you going to try this week? How does your self trust impact your confidence? Reach out for a chat if you’d like to get personalised coaching, first session is free!
