Trusting yourself can be one of the most powerful things a person can do. Trusting yourself includes listening to your 6th sense or intuition, in other words trusting and learning how to listen to your gut. To build trust with yourself in a way that sticks, you need to build it in small increments. To start the process of trusting yourself you need to consistently stay true to yourself. Being true to yourself includes things like being honest with yourself, respecting and taking the time to understand your feelings, taking responsibility for your reactions, not succumbing to social pressures, and being an independent thinker. Ultimately, the most important thing in being true to yourself is doing the things that make you happiest. This means living life for yourself on your terms and not living life for others. This doesn’t mean you become selfish or uncompromising, especially in intimate relationships, but it also means not bending yourself into a pretzel to accommodate everyone else.
Trusting yourself is also about building self-confidence which will enable you to create the life you want. Each one of us has an internal compass and learning to follow and trust in it is the surest way to find long-term happiness and live a fulfilling life. Society conditions us not to trust in ourselves and to seek validation externally, this is where we first go wrong. As children, we always trust our gut and do what feels right and natural. Kids never question how they feel. However, as we get older, we seem to lose this connection with our internal compass and start to question or completely ignore it. To trust yourself, you must remember how you were as a child, and look inward. Building self-confidence, which is critical in trusting yourself, starts with self-compassion. It means not giving into that inner voice that tells you negative, hurtful things but rather talking to and supporting yourself the same way you would a friend. We need to be our cheerleaders, the same way we cheerlead for others.
Building trust in ourselves is a process and won’t happen overnight. The most impactful change will occur in small increments. Sometimes being part of a group that can hold you accountable for the goals you set for yourself is an important part of the process. If you are looking for a community where you can learn, grow, and develop the skills and habits you need to trust and be true to yourself, visit our Brand New Me Journey Group. There you will also find information about upcoming classes you can join to start living your life unapologetically. For more information and resources to help guide your self-improvement journey, sign up here.