Let’s talk about self-trust
I’ve always considered myself to be fairly reflective and self-aware. I frequently journal, do my best to maintain a growth mindset, and am always synthesizing learnings from different life experiences. So, I was surprised (and honestly a bit disappointed) when I was well into my mid-twenties before realizing a major character flaw— I lack self-trust.
Self-trust has a myriad of different definitions on the internet, but I like this one best: “it’s not just about trusting yourself to know all the answers, nor is it believing that you will always do the right things. It’s having the conviction that you will be kind and respectful to yourself regardless of the outcome of your efforts.” Growing up, I always '“did the right thing”, which meant I did what I was told. Very rarely did I make decisions for myself, and I wasn’t really taught to give myself grace for negative outcomes.
This realization came in my mid-twenties when I found myself at several different cross-roads: “Should I move back to New York or stay in San Francisco?”, “Should I go to business school or not?”, “Should I become a therapist or stay in tech?” I was so indecisive and had zero confidence that I would be okay with any of my decisions. My response was then to outsource my decision making and essentially have others make my decisions for me. I trusted others more than I trusted myself. And to a certain degree, I didn’t want to be responsible for the consequences of the decision that had to be made, should they be “wrong".
Bringing awareness to this lack of self-trust was step one, and it’s something that I now work on every single day. Self-trust starts with following through on promises I make to myself. If I commit to meditating every single day for a week, then I will meditate every day for a week, even if it means I end up doing it for only three minutes for a few of those days. Self-trust means I stop asking for advice on major life decisions, and instead turn inwards to reflect on what my intuition says. Self-trust means being kind and compassionate with myself regardless of the outcome. It’s all about the small wins when it comes to building self-trust. How do you flex that muscle?
