The Power of Trusting Yourself.
Are you someone you can trust? For many years now, I haven’t really trusted myself in the way that I would like to. From being overweight, to constantly procrastinating things that needed doing, I’ve always known that there was a good chance that I was going to let myself or someone else down at some point.
Not when there was a crisis, because I’m really good in those (I’m actually a chaos addict – but that’s another post for another time), but when there was an everyday thing that needed doing, I was the one person I knew who would probably mess that up.
The little things, the foundational every day requirements of life are very often the things that cause me the greatest stress, and end up in a great distress. I can procrastinate in ways that terrify me.
And so I learned not to trust myself.
Which is a terrible thing, because not trusting yourself means that you usually don’t take chances, unless you are forced into it during a moment of desperation.
Not taking chances leads to the very real outcome of living with the poison of regret for never having risked becoming the person you want to be. It’s not a feeling you ever want to experience
But how do you learn to trust yourself, when you have a history of letting yourself down.
Like most things, it starts with an honest desire to change. I use the word honest, because many times I think we tell ourselves that we want to change, but deep down we know it’s a lie.
What we really want is a different outcome to the same actions so we don’t have to put in the effort, or give up that thing we know is wrong but feels so right at the time.
But eventually you’ll find that point where you really do want to become trustworthy to yourself, and you’ll begin the long process of creating self integrity, which is vital to self understanding, and self compassion.
Wanting it bad enough is the first step.
From there, you start with something really simple, like making your bed, or laying your clothes out for the next day the night before. Don’t pick something crazy difficult, or insanely time consuming. Just find one small thin you can do every day to make your life better, and then do that thing. Set a reminder on your phone if you have to.
And then don’t stop trying until you get it right.
Sure, you’ll probably fail a bunch of times along the way, we all do. But one day, you’ll find yourself doing that thing, and you’ll realize that you can trust yourself in that thing, and you’ll realize that you can be trustable.
Which is where the magic begins.
Because trust, like courage, is infectious. Once you feel the joy of trusting yourself in that one thing, you’ll begin to find other ways to trust yourself.
Slowly, or quickly, your trust changes into the confidence in yourself that you will do that important things, the large and the small things, that will change your world, and the world of those around you.
Who will you be when you make the jump to trusting yourself ?
— Dr. Alan Barnes
@maddrbmusings