Unleashing your inner strength: the power of self-trust
If you follow my blog (and thank you, if you do), you know that I recently changed my word of the year to empowered. I noted that one of the first steps to self-empowerment is mindful awareness. Another key step is developing self-trust. If you are to be empowered, you must trust your own judgment, abilities, and worthiness.
When you trust yourself, you become more confident in making decisions and taking actions that are aligned with your values and aspirations. Self-trust allows you to embrace opportunities, navigate challenges, and overcome self-doubt.
So how do you build self-trust?
There are a number of ways to cultivate trust in yourself. Here are a few suggestions to get you started.
Reflect on your past accomplishments
Take time to reflect on the challenges you have already overcome, the goals you have accomplished, and the skills you have developed along the way. Remind yourself of your capabilities and the strengths that have brought you to where you are today. Recognizing your past achievements will help you cultivate a positive self-image and lay the groundwork for self-trust.
Listen to your intuition
Pay attention to your gut feelings when making decisions. For me, one challenge in this area is differentiating between instinct and fear. In fact, I wrote a full blog post on that subject a few years ago. If this is something you struggle with as well, you may want to check it out. Over time, as you act upon your intuition and witness positive outcomes, your trust in yourself will strengthen.
Take small steps and celebrate progress
Start by setting small, achievable goals. As you take steps toward those goals, celebrate your progress, no matter how small. Acknowledge your efforts and the courage it took to take action. Each small step will reinforce your self-trust and provide momentum for further growth.
Embrace self-compassion
Self-compassion is an integral part of developing self-trust. Treat yourself with kindness, understanding, and forgiveness, just as you would a close friend. Recognize that everyone makes mistakes and experiences setbacks. Instead of dwelling on failures or berating yourself, focus on learning and growing from those experiences. By practicing self-compassion, you create a safe space for self-trust to flourish.
In summary
Developing self-trust is a transformative journey that empowers you to make confident decisions and live a fulfilling life…whatever that looks like for you.
Your turn
- In general, do you trust your gut instincts?
- What is an accomplishment you are particularly proud of…large or small?
- How did you celebrate that accomplishment?
- What else is on your mind? Anything at all; I just love to hear from you.
Hi Christie – this was a great reminder for me to look at myself now and compare that to the “old me”. I can certainly see how far I’ve come – struggles are awful at the time, but they build resilience and a belief in ourselves that carries over into the rest of our life journey. I feel a lot more confident these days and I certainly trust my gut more – and listen to the opinions of the peanut gallery a lot less!
It is good to stop periodically and appreciate the progress we’ve made and the things we’ve accomplished, Leanne. And you are right, the times that seem so awful when we are in the midst of them are the ones that build the most resilience and confidence in ourselves. I’m not asking for more, mind you! Just appreciating the lessons learned.
Christie, I love and heartily endorse your suggestions of how to build self-trust. I find they worth for all the “selfs” – worth, belief, esteem and confidence, all of which are the key part of the work I do in my coaching.
I enjoyed taking a detour into your previous post which was from before I found your blog. I’m a great believer in trusting your gut, but you make a great point about fear and instinct both being gut feelings. While not a tool I use to differentiate between the two, I’ve always gone with the one which feels right for me *right now*. I’d not previously considered whether that allowed me to remove fear from the equation, but my test being to sleep on a firmly made decision overnight to see whether you woke up feeling sick or elated, may have helped in that screening process.
As ever, really interesting reading and great questions. I’m skipping them all as I’ve burbled on enough already 😉 but will add an admission – that I don’t celebrate accomplishments. I suspect it’s my catholic upbringing and the whole ‘pride coming before a fall’ thing, but it’s a goal of mine to celebrate the small wins in small ways, with the aim of being ready for celebrating the next big one! 🙂
I like your suggestion, Debs, to sleep on a decision and see whether you are excited or dreading it in the morning. I’m going to incorporate that into my process. I hope you are truly celebrating your small wins, even in small ways. Sometimes just acknowledging the win and reveling in the feeling is celebration enough. Of course, a big win deserves a full-on celebration!
Thank you Christie, it’s a work in progress, but yes <3
Yea for progress!
Hi, Christie – I am a great believer in the power of self-trust. I frequently allow myself to be guided by gut-instinct.
And self-rewards for accomplishments big and small? I am totally into that.
For example, I have 45 emails to get through this morning. Once I have responded to each one, I will make myself a gooey grilled cheese sandwich. Shhh, don’t tell!
Well, by now I hope you have enjoyed that gooey grilled cheese sandwich, Donna. That’s one of my favorite comfort foods.
Hi Christie. I really enjoyed reading this. I’m a great believer in going with my gut instinct. There have been times that it hasn’t worked well for me and times that I’ve had great success. My first thought in following my instincts was when I bought a cafe, having never worked in a cafe. It was a great experience and worked out well. I love the direction your blog is taking.
Thank you for the kind words, Jennifer. I love that you went with your instinct on buying a cafe and that it worked out so well for you. A big step like that must have taken a lot of courage.
Thanks, Christie – It was delicious and very, very satisfying.
You raise an interesting point – as women, I think we tend to ‘intellectually’ over ride our intuition and give people or situations a benefit they don’t deserve, usually to the detriment of our safety. I wonder why that is? Where does that come from? I was followed once and kept sort of saying to myself that I was making a big deal out of nothing and he was probably just heading in the same direction. When I eventually had to get help, the man that stepped in (while I sat with his wife) immediately went and got the life guards (also male) who kicked him off the beach. I think about that, how I basically was scared and uncomfortable but second guessing myself and giving him the benefit of my doubt but three men just immediately saw the situation and acted on it….
That’s scary, Lydia. I’m so glad there were other people around to help you out. I bet you pay more attention to your gut instinct now!
Are you in my head….??
It was from your post about moving to a new WOTY that got me thinking…and I knew (as if I needed to have permission) that I too could see my first guiding word “home” had done its job and I needed to discover more of what I thought I needed…
I was thinking about I needed to up my self-worth game as well and then making it a broader way of living life moving forward. I am still pondering but next Wednesday I HOPE to have it as a post.
Thank YOU Christie for being such an ‘enabler’ in the nicest possible way!!
Thank you for sharing a post from your blog on this week’s Wednesday’s Words and Pics Link Up. I hope to see you next week too. Take care, Denyse.
Great minds think alike, Denyse! 😁 I look forward to your upcoming post.
In general, do you trust your gut instincts? I think things through first, then run my conclusion through my gut for confirmation. Kind of a two-part process that gives me the confidence to do whatever it is that I’m contemplating. I’ve never been impulsive, unless it comes to picking a flavor for an ice cream cone, then I’m totally unpredictable.
I wholly support your two-step process, Ally. I’m not very impulsive myself, so I like the combination of gut and head. I couldn’t agree more on the ice cream. Try all the flavors!
I struggle with intuition and gut feelings. In general I overthink things and then second guess myself, and often then berate myself for making a wrong decision, especially if my head over-ruled my gut in the decision. Working on it. I do like the idea of sleeping on a decision with a “how do you feel in the morning – sick or elated”.
It’s definitely a learn-as-you-go journey, isn’t it, Pat? I tend to overthink as well and quite liked the “how do you feel in the morning” approach.