How to Improve Your Self-Trust
Trust, in general, is difficult to give, but especially difficult to give to yourself if you’ve proven time and again you won’t respect it.
Self-trust, in my opinion, is a foundational aspect to personal growth and self-worth. When you don’t trust yourself, you’re far more likely to abandon and betray yourself in favour of someone or something else that you think is more trustworthy. You won’t feel confident enough to attempt big, scary goals because you won’t trust yourself to do the hard thing, withstand discomfort, or support yourself along the way. You’ll struggle to show up for yourself and be vulnerable enough to allow a necessary amount of self-awareness to encourage growth and evolution.
Trust, in general, is difficult to give, but especially difficult to give to yourself if you’ve proven time and again you won’t respect it. The less you’re able to trust yourself, the less you feel safe within your own skin, the place you’re supposed to feel most at home. Over time, you’ll feel disconnected and disjointed from yourself, leaving you to roam the world with deep fear and shame about who you are. All of this comes down to how able and willing you are to trust yourself.
Below are a few tips on how to improve your self-trust in the hopes that you can feel more at home with yourself:
You have to make promises to yourself and keep them. These promises shouldn’t be too overwhelming or out of your scope because they’ll be too difficult to keep. You have to work with who you know yourself to be and what you know you need yourself to do.
Be kind and forgiving toward yourself when you make a mistake or don’t succeed at what you were aiming for. The more you hate or berate yourself, the less you trust yourself. You won’t want to be around yourself, which means you’ll try to find solace and escape in someone else. This will then lead you to over-attaching in relationships because you can’t trust yourself to understand your boundaries.
Do what you know is good for you despite how uncomfortable it might be. The things that are good for you might risk rejection or abandonment by others, but at least you’ll know you’re on your side. When you show up for yourself, say ‘no’ when you need to, and remove yourself from an unhealthy situation, you trust yourself to have your back, making it easier to rely on yourself moving forward. This won’t be easy, especially in interpersonal relationships that risk loneliness or isolation, but it’s often most pertinent to stand your ground in those moments to prove to yourself that you’re trustworthy.