How to build self-trust in 7 easy steps

self-trust

“Wherever you go, there you are.”~ Zen Proverb

People often talk about being trustworthy for others, but what does it mean to be trustworthy for yourself? I’m not a fan of Big New Year’s Resolutions, as they often feel like a way to set yourself up for failure (see 9 Tips for Resolutions Without Guilt blog post). I’ve certainly tried and failed enough times myself with this process! On the other hand, beginning to make and keep small commitments to yourself leads to the ability to keep bigger commitments to both yourself and others. These seven steps are a guide to building self-trust.

Start small and build to bigger things

Marcia Weidner says, “The relationship we have with ourselves is the most important relationship we have and will experience, in our lifetime.” You are the only person in your life that will be there every step of the way. Your ability to trust yourself can impede or empower you to take action in the world. Making and keeping agreements with yourself is crucial for building self-trust.

Start improving your self-trust, now

1. Make appointments with yourself

A great way to build self-trust is to begin making and keeping appointments with yourself. In the same way that you would put a doctor’s appointment on the calendar and find the time to get there, you can put “work out” or “research and writing” on your own unshared calendar. If you are using a shared calendar, block out the time as “unavailable” without an explanation.

This will allow you to look at your schedule when someone asks you to do something else at a specific time you have set aside for your own projects. You do not have to tell anyone why you cannot do whatever they are asking. Simply say “I’m tied up then,” or “I have a conflict at that time.”

Keeping appointments with yourself helps you demonstrate to yourself that you are important and trustworthy. Appointments with yourself help you remember what you wanted to do at a specific time, so that you don’t look at a blank time slot on your calendar and agree to a meeting you actually didn’t want, or didn’t need, to attend. Even if you keep most appointments with yourself, you are free to discern when it is a good idea to break one, as when someone you have been trying to connect with for ages finally calls and says, “Do you have some time to talk now?”

2. Make commitments to yourself

Another way to build self-trust comes from keeping commitments to yourself. To keep your commitments, begin by looking at your goals and breaking them down into smaller steps, then keeping track of what actually got done. Instead of saying “I will finish writing my dissertation, build my website, or lose twenty pounds,” be concrete and think of smaller steps instead: “I will write one paragraph of my literature review,” or “I will purchase my domain name,” or “I will cut out afternoon snacks for one week.” Bite-size goals are a lot easier to digest.

3. Be accountable to yourself

To build self-trust and be accountable to yourself, declare your commitments out loud to other people. It’s harder to break a commitment to yourself if you’ve taken it out of your head and put it into the world. A specific accountability partner is a wonderful way to have both social connections and do what you’ve promised to yourself. Over time, you will begin to realize you can trust yourself to follow through, instead of worrying about missed deadlines or opportunities.

I have a wonderful writing accountability partner, and I’ve often been forced to do something because I promised to have a certain amount done by the next time we talk. I’ll look at my calendar and realize the standing Tuesday appointment is only a day away and I better have something to show for the last week. It may not be a hard deadline, but it is a real deadline outside of myself.

If you get new information through research or conversations with other people leading to new ideas and therefore new work, make sure you communicate that with your accountability partner. Then verbally agree to a new deadline. It will help you stay accountable and moving forward on any project without feeling guilty or ashamed.

4. The importance of results

Trusting yourself must include results. Use the talents, attitude, skills, knowledge, and style you possess to act appropriately. Here are some things to keep in mind as your build self-trust:

  • Know your best strengths and work from those
  • Keep yourself relevant by always being in a learning frame of mind
  • Guide yourself keeping the end in mind
  • Take responsibility for your results, whether the outcome is good or bad
  • Expect to succeed eventually—even with many failures along the way
  • Be the best you can be in whatever circumstance you find yourself in

5. What you resist, persists

As you build self-trust, notice any resistance you felt to actually doing something you committed to doing. I’ve heard it said that “What you resist, persists.” Check-in with that, because it may be nothing more than fear of failure. We all know you can’t possibly fail something you didn’t actually try. See if you can figure out what is getting in your way.

Fear of failure is certainly an inhibitor for me: on more than one occasion I’ve felt my ideas are flawless until I try to set them down. Or I hear the old gremlin voice, “It will never be good enough.” It’s discouraging enough to make me postpone the process of writing. If getting stymied is a regular occurrence for you, you might have to find a way to counteract the negative self-talk and find your own best strategies to flip that into something more positive.

If you are creating new commitments with yourself and find you aren’t keeping them, see if there is a better way to actually meet your goals. Are you trying to get up at 5:00 AM to go to the gym but just keep rolling over in bed? Why not try going at 5:00 PM as a way to create a break that will leave you feeling better physically and emotionally? Be truthful with yourself about your own best habits and adjust accordingly.

6. Reward yourself

When you meet your own commitment, chose some small reward for yourself for doing it.

If you spent an hour writing, maybe you deserve a break for tea or a walk around the block in the sunshine. If you did an informational interview or prepared for an actual interview, maybe you could meet up with a friend in a coffee shop to talk about it. If you spent 20-30 minutes on the elliptical machine maybe you should play with a pet for five minutes to relax.

Just make sure the reward you give yourself is commensurate with the actual amount of time you spent working. Writing one paragraph, requesting one informational interview, or just getting yourself to the gym does not equate to rewarding yourself by going out for dinner and a movie. You don’t want to reward yourself so much that you are not actually getting anything done.

7. Tracking your success

If you need a concrete visual reminder of how you are doing with learning to trust yourself, you can create a one-week “challenge grid” to track your actions and see how you do. Consider it a success chart. This is pretty simple: Make a chart with 9 columns and 5-7 rows. Label the first column “Goals” and the last column “Rewards.” Label columns 2-8 with the days of the week. Now start charting our daily results. Feel free to use this simple template, Challenge-Reward Daily Chart. You might want to take some time at the end of the week to reflect on how it went.

Use these 7 easy steps to improve your self-trust and prepare for a wonderful new year!

Next month, I’ll talk about learning to use your intuition as another way to learn how to trust yourself.

 

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