In today’s podcast episode I’m talking about all thing self-trust - how we can build it and how we can stop second guessing ourselves. This is foundational stuff on which we can build self-belief and confidence. I talk about why it’s so important and share some top tips for cultivating self-trust.
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Links and further reading
Transcript
Introduction:
Today I want to talk about self-trust, how we can build it and how we can stop second guessing ourselves. This is such an important part of the self-worth journey and I can’t wait to dive in, let’s get started.
Episode:
Hello lovely people, how are you doing? I am recording this a couple of days before Dan and I move home so I am surrounded by chaos but am feeling very excited and by the time you listen we will hopefully be all settled in and hopefully I will have found a new recording spot…no idea where that will be right now, but I will find somewhere!
But yeah - today I was to talk about self-trust because this really is the foundation of a lot of things like confidence and self-belief, but before we get into that I wanted to say that if you’re listening to this on the day it goes out then this evening I am hosting my first virtual workshop and it’s all about building quiet confidence.
I’m going to be busting some confidence myths, helping you tune into your brand of confidence and showing you the steps to take to build that quiet inner knowing that you’ve got this. If you want to come along, it’s happening live at 6pm this evening or you can get the replay - I’ll pop the link in the show notes.
OK, so - self-trust, let’s get into it.
This is a topic I’ve become drawn to more and more over the years and I think it’s because so many of us focus our attention on other goals that can feel a bit far away, like becoming more confident or making big life changes and when we lock onto these in our minds, we can forget about self-trust which lives a little closer to home.
When that trust isn’t there, we second guess ourselves. We might not respect our opinions or be sure about what we want from life. And without this it can be hard to build self-belief, it’s like building a house on shaky foundations - the lack of self-trust can knock everything down in an instant.
And the way we build a strong foundation of self-trust is by developing a better relationship with ourselves. We have to be kind to ourselves, tune into our inner voice and listen to what it has to say. When we do this, when we listen to ourselves and give ourselves what we need, we build up that trust.
It actually reminds me of a part of the eating disorder recovery process. When I started eating more in my recovery it was like I unleashed a hunger beast and I was hungrier than I’d ever been. This is because my body didn’t trust me. I’d been keeping food from it so when I did eat, it didn’t know when I was going to eat again so it was trying to drive me to eat as much as possible in case that was the last time I was going to eat for a while. It’s a really tough and scary part of recovery but I realised the way to move past it was to build trust with my body. I kept listening to it, eating at regular times and eventually that intense hunger eased because it knew I was going to eat again. My body trusted me again.
So the key really is listening to yourself and responding again and again. But how exactly do we do that? Here are some tips.
Firstly, carve out space to listen to yourself. Life is busy, we all have a lot going on. Listening to our inner voice is rarely high on the agenda, so you have to set aside time to reflect, listen and process your feelings. This could mean journaling, meditating, going for a walk without listening to music or a podcast, or talking it out.
Now you could talk to a friend but I would actually advise instead that you record yourself talking it out on your phone. When we talk to others things can get muddied by their opinions, so it can be better to either do it alone as I mentioned or talking to a coach. Coaches use reflective questions to help you uncover your own ideas and decisions and shouldn’t input their opinion.
With this in mind I also want to suggest being careful with your advice sources. The world is a noisy place with lots of opinions and it can be hard to pull apart your dreams from the ones society thinks you should have. I talk more about questioning societal expectations in episode 41 so I’d definitely recommend giving that a listen if you haven’t already. But in general, try to give some thought to whose opinion you really care about and why. It can also help to step away from social media if it starts to feel a bit noisy. Step back, take a breath and listen to yourself.
My next tip is to try to understand your inner critic better. This critical voice is often painted as a monster but usually it’s just a scared part of us that’s trying to protect us. If we can recognise this and respond kindly by asking for evidence and saying thank you for your thoughts, but I’m going to listen to my inner voice, not my inner critic today. This can lead the way to more positive self-talk which is the best way to build self trust - after all, why would we trust ourselves if we’re being mean to ourselves?
As I mentioned earlier, compassion towards yourself is a key part of building self-trust and because of this, self-care is another tip I want to mention. When we prioritise self-care we prove to ourselves that we deserve nurturing and this builds both self-worth and self-trust. Think about what self-care activities you could shimmy up your priority list, put them in your calendar and honour this appointment with yourself.
Another ah-ha moment I’ve had when it comes to self-trust was letting go of habits that undermine my self-trust. In my case this was when I made epically long to-do lists every day including routine tasks like taking out the bins. Reminders are helpful, yes, but I really didn’t need a list to tell me to do something I do every week. This list began to hover over me, making me feel anxious and when I got rid of it, I realised I did know when to take the bins out. I could trust myself. This is just one example of an undermining habit, for you it might be over-working to prove you know what you’re doing when you really don’t need to or constantly asking other people to make decisions. Think about what undermining habit you have and see how it feels to let it go.
Finally I want to talk about noticing how it feels in your body when you don’t listen to yourself. This was something I learnt about when doing an NLP course and the idea is to close your eyes and think back to a time when you made a decision but you knew deep down it wasn’t the right one. How did that feel in your body? How would you describe it? For me I really feel this in the pit of my stomach, it feels heavy, like a stone. Get your own description clear in your head. The hope is that once you have this in mind, you’re more likely to recognise it if it happens again and you can make a different decision. This is how you stop second guessing yourself. You trust your body and what it’s telling you. You have the answers, it’s just about tuning into them.
I feel like we covered quite a lot here so please do feel free to go back and listen again but to summarise, the best way to build self-trust and stop second guessing yourself is to choose your advice sources carefully, be kind to yourself and listen to yourself.
And if you want to build quiet confidence on top of this as I said at the beginning my workshop is happening live tonight, the link to buy your ticket is in the show-notes, it’s £20 and I would love to see you there.
I’ll be back in a couple of weeks where I’ll be recording from the new flat - yay!! But until then, take care.
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