Like all other relationships, your relationship with yourself benefits from an abundance of trust. When you don’t believe in yourself, it’s tough to follow your inner voice, feel confident, take care of your needs, seize chances, and make choices.
Here are some potential causes for that feeling, consequences, and solutions on how to trust yourself even more!
Table of Contents
Why can’t we trust ourselves?
Insecurities and Self-Doubt
Self-doubt has its roots and manifests itself in a lack of faith in one’s abilities. This vicious cycle of poor self-esteem leads to a lack of self-confidence in oneself perpetuates itself. As kids, we may not have been encouraged to try new things, or we could have been taught that failing at anything reflects poorly on us.
When we consider making plans, establishing a habit that works, or attempting something new, the inner critic starts to criticize and undermine us.
The origin of one’s insecurities might be anything: a passing remark. A string of unfortunate events, an anxious attachment style, etc. We lose faith in ourselves as a result of our worries. When we lack self-assurance, we tend to assume the worst about ourselves, believing.
Thinking Negatively
Staying stuck in a negative mental pattern might have serious consequences. Feeling down in the dumps, we’re less likely to think clearly and more prone to blow off possibilities. When we focus on the bad, our minds go into “triage” mode, where they process new information as if it were vital to their survival.
We can’t help but think about risks when we’re in this mood. When we don’t try to see the good in things, we start to believe the bad things we’ve been thinking, negative self-talk, self-criticism and start looking for proof to back up our ideas.
Happenings in One’s Life
As people, we are all subject to life’s inevitable disappointments and hardships. Life’s challenges, setbacks, and traumas affecting our mental health convince us that we’re doomed to failure. Losing a parent or other people’s opinions, for example, could happen at a very young age, making the person feel less safe and fair.
A trusted person’s abuse or neglect may have caused us to question our values or damaged our sense of self-worth and self-trust. We may mistakenly believe we cannot form lasting friendships because of the many relocations imposed on us as children.
6 Ways on How to Trust Yourself
1) Be true to yourself.
We know that being yourself is some of the most common advice. But it’s one of the best ways to get to know, learn to trust, and rebuild and gain confidence. The more you can be yourself, the more you’ll learn about yourself, and the more others will learn about you.
This will help you figure out how you feel and what you want instead of doing what you think you should do. Being on your authentic self, and being confident in your skin, can build up more of your identity, which helps a lot when building trust.
The more trustworthy someone is, the more real and well-known they are.
2) Write down all positive qualities you have.
Making a “pros” list about yourself but don’t include any “cons” is a form of a self-care routine. It’s important to write down Everything you like about yourself and what you’re proud of.
This shows you how great you are and how many good things about you there are. Look at your list when you feel down and can’t trust yourself.
3) Write down the good things that people say about you.
We shouldn’t worry too much about what other people think of us, but sometimes they can be helpful. You can start to write down the nice things people say about you, such as compliments and feedback at work.
When you’re having a hard time, this will help you feel better about yourself and remind you that you’re smart and reliable. Using this list as a guide is a great way to make the most of your resources and boost your sense of self-worth.
4) Enjoy your time alone.
Being around many people can be overwhelming when you find it hard to trust yourself. But for this time, let yourself be your own best friend. Spend time more with yourself and do Everything that makes you happy.
You’re always afraid you’ll say or do something stupid because you don’t trust your words or actions. By getting used to being on your own, you’ll quickly feel more at ease with who you are and what you think.
This is very important and ties in with what we said before about making your own identity. Spending time alone might initially feel strange and take you out of your comfort zone, but it will help you get to know yourself better and build self-trust.
5) Forgive and forget.
As we just discussed, it’s smart to be ready for the unexpected and anything Life throws. This helps you trust yourself and help more. If you won’t always look for perfection and won’t be as upset if things don’t work out exactly the way you thought they would.
When that happens, you should say sorry and move on. It is a form of self-compassion as you are freeing yourself from the negative things that have happened in the past. In self-work, it’s important to learn from your mistakes, but it’s also important to let yourself be human and not be perfect all the time.
Even if you make a wrong choice, you can still love and build self-confidence, and you can always try again if you’re not happy.
6) Get in touch with what you want.
We’ve already talked about how trusting ourselves takes time, but it also takes work and energy. We think a lot about how trusting ourselves can help the people around us.
Our boss might like it if we worked faster and didn’t ask them questions all the time—our partners like it when we make decisions instead of leaving them to do all the work.
What do we get from this, though? Why do we need to trust ourselves? Take some time to think about your inner needs and wants and how self-trust will help you.
Final Thoughts
It can be difficult to trust ourselves, especially when we make mistakes. However, there are many ways that we can increase our self-trust. First, we must understand why we find it hard to trust ourselves. Once we know the root of the problem, we can start working on solutions.
Many techniques can help us build our self-trust muscles. Eventually, we will be able to rely on ourselves more in all aspects of Life. Trust your intuition, take action despite fear, and practice positive affirmations and forgiveness. These are just a few ways you may begin to put greater faith in yourself immediately.