Do your trust yourself? What to do to enhance your self-belief…

Trust is a huge topic so as with “eating an elephant”, I’m going to start off with “the tail”.

I’m curious, what words would you use to define trust? why do we need to trust ourselves and other? where is trust of most value? who should we trust and not trust? how do we develop trust? when should we focus most on trust?

And in ways have your explored your knowledge, your toolkit and your strategies around trust?

Do you trust yourself?

So like I said this topic is HUGE, so here we go.

Trust can be defined as (thanking dictionary.com):

• reliance on the integrity, strength, ability, surety, etc., of a person or thing; confidence.
• confident expectation of something; hope.
• the obligation or responsibility imposed on a person in whom confidence or authority is placed

So it could be said that trust relates to our intuition, our gut instinct, our core values, our identity and awareness of what matters in life.

We connect instantaneously with those we like, those we respect and those we trust.

This connection arises through our nervous system and our gut brain assimilating messages and signals that align to our own set of beliefs and our own map of reality.

We know who we like and who we don’t. But do we understand why?

Have you ever trust someone only later to be let down by this individual? Did you ever unpack what happened in this “story” to determine whether you “missed” something or whether something in the environment/ situation caused such a huge shift that the character of the person you initially trusted, changed?

Trust and intuition are inter-linked – they relate to our core survival strategy – fight or flight.

So your knowledge of trust, had a chat recently with those around you about trust and what it means to you/ them? Have you ever discussed with anyone the degree to which you value the people you trust in your life? Ever sat down with your most trusted tribe and explored what makes “it work”?

We all do “life” differently. Why? Because we are all of different gene pools, we have different personalities and we have had different life experiences as we have evolved through childhood, teenage and early adulthood onwards. We have been shaped by what we our gut instinct, our feelings and our thoughts; we have been shaped by the thoughts, feelings and behaviours of those around us reflecting the results we have seen emerging in the lives of those in our life. We choose what is desirable and what is undesirable and we base our own thoughts, feelings and behaviours on what we see, hear and feel.

Understanding the core of our personality, what make us who we are and also why we do what we do, our values along with the patterns we exhibit in our thoughts, feelings and behaviours enhances our likelihood of leading fulfilling lives.

Understanding that other people have different personalities, different toolkits, different knowledge and different values – enables us to accept and embrace the value of collaboration.

Understanding the power of trust and differentiating trustworthy from untrustworthy can make like more enjoyable and rewarding.

Going deeper into the aspect of untrustworthy, as the saying goes it takes two to tango so if you feel someone is untrustworthy – unpack that further to determine whether you it is you’re issue, their issue or something else is going on that your intuition is nudging you to explore further – in the knowledge that sometime the brain plays tricks and that actually there might be a flawed experience or a fractured memory that is actually counteracting the current coherent of the current situation in which you are present.

Moreover there is the vital ingredient in life called growth. Your brain is built to learn and remember, it enjoys new knowledge and gets excited when it is able to make connections between past memories and new awareness. So it is valuable to understand that sometimes it is actually of more value to note that there is no such thing as failure only feedback and that the more you experience life, the more you learn and the more you enjoy.

Indeed reading autobiographies and biographies of anyone who is even mildly enjoying life will demonstrate to you that there are continuous stages of personal growth and these stages do not form a straight line – anything but!  Moreover trust is something that is not always instantaneous and not always consistent – sometimes it can offer huge rewards and it is a skill that is innate and also to be encouraged.

So trust yourself in the long-run, focus on the “big picture” and accept that in the long-run the more you explore, experience and explain through knowledge, understanding and wisdom – the more you will trust yourself and the more you will enhance your self-belief that you can believe and achieve!