Trust Is the Key

Self doubt is one of the greatests barriers to living the life you always dreamed of. Stemming from a lack of trust in yourself, in your abilities to overcome challenges, face fears and do hard things. Trust is something we often attribute to others. But let’s take the mirror out, and reflect on how trust in ourselves impacts the lives we live.

My Struggle

In the past, I struggled to trust myself. Always looking to others for approval, validation or advice. I lacked the confidence in my ability to make good decisions, out of a fear of making mistakes or being judged. So instead of looking inward to figure me out, I turned to others.

Masquerading as a reflection of whoever was around me at any given moment. Mannerisms, jokes, communication style. I was great with people because I’d become just like them. Leaving my true self at the door in favour of the version of me I thought other people wanted.

This worked for many years until I began to grow tired of acting. At 19 I started to see that I struggled to be myself around others. I didn’t even know what the real me looked like. But I knew that this performance was not it.

You can’t trust what do you don’t know, if you don’t know yourself how can you believe in you?

I did not trust myself to be myself, which reflected heavily in the life I lived:

Decision paralysis - Every decision felt like life or death. I’d spend minutes, hours or days combing through options, potential outcomes and implications. I’d stress myself out and even after making a decision, worry if it was the right one. Often changing my mind which as you can imagine was draining.

Ignoring intuition - We all possess a super power within us, intuition or gut reaction. A guiding force which often knows the best decision to make in a moments notice. The issue comes when we haven’t developed the skill of feeling this response or worse, ignoring it. I’d ignore the quiet whispers of intuition and go with a reaction, leading to regret more time than not.

Obsessed over judgement - What I thought, others would think about me was a constant driving force in my actions, conversations and relationships. Causing unmanageable amounts of anxiety and stress.

Understanding Trust

Trusting yourself is not believing you have all the answer, nor is it believing you always make good choices.

It is a belief in your ability to navigate the difficulties of life, learning from your experiences. Accepting mistakes, flaws and anything that does and will happen. It’s about cultivating a relationship of kindness, forgiveness and love with oneself. Knowing that life happens for you, not to you.

The 3 components of trust:

• Integrity - Following through with what you say

• Compassion - Kind and accepting to yourself

• Consistency - Integrity and compassions repeated over time

Trust is built when you say you’ll do something and actually do it, over a extended time period. Whilst remaining kind to yourself throughout the process.

Benefits of trust:

What trusting myself has created:

• Confidence - Believing in myself whilst finding and creating evidence to support that has gone along way in building confidence.

• Genuines - letting go of the need for approval, the worry of judgement. Becoming comfortable in my own skin. Removing the want to conform to who I think people want me to be and living a life I want.

• Cultivate inner kindness. Learning to trust also means learning to love. To let go of constant beratement and allow myself to make mistakes with the knowledge it will all work out.

How I built trust

Find evidence in the past of when you followed through on your word.

Making intentional choices:

• “What do I really want in this moment?”

• “Is this action aligned with how I want to live?”

• “Am I showing up as my authentic self in this moment?”

Integrity:

• Carefully consider what you commit too. If you say you’ll do something do it.

• Take responsibility for actions

• Be honest in all interactions

Consistency:

• Do the things you wish to do, over days, weeks, months and years.

• Lower the bar of completion, you want to read daily - make it one page. make it easy and achievable and you will become consistent

Compassion:

• Reflect on mistakes. See them as they are without judging them as bad or good.

• Be kind to yourself regularly - What has went well today, what am I proud of, What do I love about myself.

• Accept yourself fully, flaws and all. Let go of the idea of perfection. Imperfections are part of being human.

• Gratitude - What can I be grateful for today or in this moment?

Trust is the key to a life of abundance, to finding the light in darkness. Too seeing each moment as an opportunity to learn, grow and be. Life happens for you, not to you. Have faith in it and yourself.

Stay curious,

Morgan Bedford