How to trust yourself more

What's your relationship with uncertainty and control?

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The other day, I was flicking through pages of self-help books in my local bookstore. I was struck by the number of titles that were in some way about learning to trust yourself more. Trusting yourself more with money, work, relationships, health or just taking risks in general.

Most had an undercurrent of two words: self-doubt and fear.

It prompted me to think about a powerful question:

What does it mean to say, ‘I trust myself’ or ‘I don’t trust myself’?

Both ideas involve a powerful concept – our relationship with uncertainty and control.

Make uncertainty your friend

On a family holiday, my son wanted to celebrate his birthday by asking me to jump off a 15ft wall into freezing cold ocean water. Really, this is all he wanted to do on his big day! Jump with his mum. He knows I hate heights. He knows I complain about feeling the cold. I think he was testing me.

I love taking risks with my ideas. Testing, experimenting, failing, learning. But I’m not great at taking physical risks. I’d never jump out of a plane. I hate heights and ledges. I’m scared of swimming in any kind of deep water in the sea.

Why? I don’t like the feeling of my body being out of control. 

If you’d like to uncover where you trust yourself (and where you don’t) try this simple exercise:

·      Think about situations in your life where you can cope with and might even enjoy uncertainty. What do they have in common?

Now try the opposite.

·      Think of situations and relationships where you can’t tolerate uncertainty. Maybe you feel anxious, confused, indecisive or even paralyzed. Why?

It will have something to do with control.

The greater the uncertainty, the more trust you need in yourself. To trust yourself in uncertainty, you need to be comfortable with not knowing or being in control of the outcome. 

When a lack of trust is holding you back

Back to the wall jump. Once my son asked (more like dared me) there was no way I wasn’t going to do it! But I also wasn’t going to hide that I was afraid.

Courageous people aren't fearless. Far from it. They learn to make friends with uncertainty, to move through it, without it paralyzing them. 

I was honest with Jack. To jump, I needed a wetsuit. I needed my husband to go first to check the water was deep enough (ha!) and I needed him to cheer me on.

Why am I telling you this? Because there is a much bigger lesson behind my silly birthday jumping story.

No matter what the challenge, there are two things you can do when you find a lack of trust is holding you back:

1. Do what you can to reduce the unknown (what’s your wetsuit or the equivalent of making someone jump first?)

2. Find the right people to have by your side to help build your confidence to sit and then through the uncertainty.

If you’re waiting to be certain about something uncertain, you’ll never start. Ever.

Trusting yourself more means making the fear and doubts that comes with uncertainty work for you.

After I made the first jump, I went back and did it again. I had a blast. I discovered I loved the feeling of hitting the water. I even enjoy the cold.

And that is the beautiful thing about trusting yourself to take new risks – it's where we can discover the most about ourselves. A lack of trust is what stops us exploring new directions and opportunities. It limits us.

You may be wondering, “But isn’t caution a good thing sometimes?” Of course!

Overconfidence is not always great either. My son stopped me when I started gearing up for a Tom Daley style front flip! “Okay mum, enough.” he said protectively.

Warmly,

P.S. I love to hear all your thoughtful replies, so please add any comments so I can respond to you.

What’s an area of your life where you wished you trusted yourself a little or a lot more? This is the topic of this week’s discussion thread, which I’ll send to you on Wednesday. So get thinking and please do join us to share your thoughts and ideas on the topic of trusting yourself.

Rethink is funded by direct subscriptions from readers like you, so if you enjoy and value the content, please consider becoming a paying subscriber. Membership costs just £1 per week (or £50 if you join for the year.)