There is one thing that has the power to improve most aspects of your life and that is having a stronger belief in yourself or self-trust! It provides you with the self-assurance required to live your best life with the ability to make more confident and harder decisions while taking more action in all your life areas. But self-trust is no longer automatic. You are born with self-trust, but this innate ability is whipped out of you by society and its systems. You constantly face judgment, downplay of your strengths, and focus on external versus internal peace, strength, and wisdom.
“Doubt kills more dreams than failure ever will.” Suzy Kassem
Your success is determined by your ability to make, trust, act on, and take charge of your own decisions, such as, how to live with purpose and meaning, stand up for your values, and be disciplined and committed to your decisions. When you bring trust to the process through practice, you earn your own trust and grow worthier of your own trust. If you can show self-trust at least enough to persevere, your self-trust will grow. Your creative freedom and personal truth hinges on self-trust. Your instincts and intuition along with your analytical skills and insight will prepare you to face the uncertainty of life. Rely on your inner resources, i.e., physical, emotional, and mental to chart and navigate your life. Surround yourself with the right conditions to flourish, promote, and expand your ability to trust yourself within environments that are:
§ Accepting and non-Judgmental that minimizes your self-doubt.
§ Appreciative of your unique strengths providing you a means to demonstrate your strengths.
§ Inviting you to look within yourself for answers to teach and practice self-trust (What do you think? How do you feel?).
Self-trust can be lost but also restored. When you are betrayed or mistakes are made, they are valuable lessons. Reframing of the mistake and betrayal like seeing and seizing on better opportunities, will encourage you to risk trusting yourself again. Your creative expression will emerge as you trust your instincts and provide an outlet for your creativity. Trust yourself to author that book, start your business, live a healthier lifestyle, grow your personal and professional relationships. Trust yourself that you will not quit what matters but will quit or exit situations and relationships that do not matter. Trust that you have the capability needed to meet that challenge, solve that problem, and know and act when something is just not right. But also, do not blindly trust yourself too much believing you can walk on water due to narcissism, fantasizing, delusion, or naivety. Responsible dependency on others can keep you grounded.
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If you do not establish self-trust with practice, your life’s outcomes will be blown aimlessly around like ash from a fire landing in some unknown destination because you followed others instead of leading and controlling your life. You will question “How did I get here?” You must be the leader of your life and trust yourself, the decisions, and choices you make, and your ability to get out of uncomfortable situations. This is not about perfection by knowing all the answers or you will always do the right things. Self-trust says you are committed to being gentle and respectful with yourself regardless of the outcome of your efforts.
“No one will believe in you until you believe in you.” Robin Sharma
With self-trust, you rely on your integrity with clarity and confidence in your choices. You speak with authority not arrogance, observe and learn from your successes and failures. Having self-trust means you will not punish yourself when mistakes are made. To regret is to be human. However, regret will undermine the trust you have within yourself. To ensure you do not self-sabotage, you must “feel” the depth of your regret, understand it to learn from it, forgive yourself and others, and act. When you have demonstrated that you have learned from the mistake, regret evaporates. Then self-forgiveness and self-trust automatically occur. Leverage your inner critical voice in a productive way. Avoidance only diminishes your self-trust resulting in addictions or other disempowering distractions. Listen and standup to your inner critic, relate to it, and educate it.
Your success is in the present. Living with past regret or worrying about future suffering undermines self-trust. You will miss so many present opportunities that are circling around you. When you are present, you may feel unprotected. But take on the challenge of courage to tolerate potential longevity of anxiety. In doing so, you will not be enslaved by fear ensuring growth of self-trust. You now challenge your fear of being open and present in your life. With eagerness, feel the anticipation of future learning and growth.
