Trusting Yourself: Here's How You Can Create Contentment, Comfort and Acceptance in Yourself
Some people believe trusting yourself means to being able to attempt to do all kinds of things without judging yourself too harshly. Some also say it means to trust your intuition or gut feeling.
But, trusting yourself is really a journey, a beautiful relationship that we develop with ourselves, where in we are comfortable with our dreams, ambitions, fears and decisions. And this ties in perfectly with the whole notion of being Unapologetically You. Of being so comfortable in your truth and knowing that no matter what, you are going to show up the way you are meant to.
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In this episode, we chat about what it means to "Trust Yourself" and find contentment, comfort and acceptance in a wholesome life.
We chat about the different components of developing trust in yourself and your intuition - in the smaller, everyday, practical aspects and the larger big picture situations.
I give you some working tips and action steps for it and there's a short exercise at the end for you to take home that'll guide you in your journey.
So, tune in for some fun, some honest conversations and some tangible action steps that'll help you strengthen your trust in yourself.
You'll love it!
WHAT IT REALLY MEANS:
Here's the components of "Trusting Yourself":
1. Being able to attempt to do all kinds of things without judging yourself too harshly.
To fail is inevitable, to fail fast is a skill because honestly what doesnt work teaches you more about your art than what does work, think about it.
What we do when we don't trust ourselves is that we don't give ourselves the benefit of the doubt and our first conclusion when something doesn't work is that it's entirely our fault and that we are not good and shouldn't have even tried to do the thing.
2. The next component is the “Intuition” or Gut feeling part of it.
The thing with intuition and gut feeling is that actually honing in on the skill of really being able to listen to your own voice is challenging in and of itself and when you add in the component of our intrinsic fears, it becomes all the more complicated.
It’s about trusting that what you feel or are perceiving makes sense and is guiding you in its own way, if that makes sense.
Growing up, I felt like it was really tough for me to confidently trust my intuition and affirm something that I don't know to be a 100% proven correct because of the fear that I may be wrong.
That’s why I always tell people that I'm not a betting person. At All!
And maybe you feel the sme way and so I'm telling you this. I have realised that no one is correct a 100% of the time. Sometimes outcomes surprise you.
You are not going to be 100% of the time, but that doesn't make you any less deserving of listening to your gut the next time around.
3. Trusting that you've done your best
One more component that is super important to stress on is what comes in the context of performance anxiety in situations like exams.
Its that feeling of looking at your book the day before the exam and feeling like a blank slate even though you honestly know a lot more than you lead yourself to believe on that day.
And when you get this “Blank Slate” feeling, you go to your exams stressed and anxious and perform worse than you would've had you not been stressed.
This leads to you performing not as well, which just re-affirms your belief of “ Oh I actually don't know anything” and that worsens your anxiety for the next time.
And there’s no getting out of it.
Your point of escape is Trusting Yourself.
It's cutting the cycle off at that point by trusting yourself and knowing that you've done your best and then trusting the process.
Giving the test stress free, knowing in your heart that you've done well in preparation, which will give you better results, which will then re affirm your belief in yourself.
You see how thats a much better vicious cycle to be in?
Then, there's the contentment, comfort and acceptance of all facets of you as an individual - your dreams, your ambitions, your fears, your decisions...all of it!
It's that beautiful and liberating feeling of being at home with yourself and cultivating and creating that wholesome life for yourself.
So, going from the smaller, everyday, practical components to the larger picture components of it, you got the idea of what were dealing with now.
ACTION STEPS:
Try new things. Keep doing new things that you may not be good at. The more you fail, the more you think you feel like a fool, the more you do all of these new things that maybe make no sense, but light you up, the more you take that bold, imperfect action, the more you show up bravely, the more you train your muscle of trust. The less you consciously self-criticize, the more you start loving yourself. It's unnerving as hell, but its absolutely worth it!
Try Noticing when you have a split second Intuition or a quick thought about something as simple as an answer to an MCQ question that you are not sure of the answer to. Notice how a lot fo the times, your first educated guess and split second thought is correct. This will help you build trust in yourself.
Take a piece of paper, choose an affirmation and keep it with you at all times. Training your mind to do something that it isn't used to doing and getting rid of your default settings is a very challenging task. It's not gonna come in a day.
You're going to fail over and over and start over and over, until one day you'll see a massive difference in your own patterns.
PUT YOUR THINKING CAPS ON:
Get a pen, paper, journal, whatever you need to write, pour yourself a nice cup of tea or coffee, clear your mind and do this exercise with me.
1. List 3 of your most important values & 3 of the most beautiful things about you.
2. What do I think it means to trust myself?
"I mean this gal over here just said a bunch of words and went on and on about trusting yourself, but what do I really think. What applies to me?"
3. Do I trust myself? Completely, partially, not at all, whatever the story is.
And why do I feel that way?
So then,
4. How do I support myself around that? What can I do to begin developing that trust?
Maybe it's starting a meditation practice, maybe it's the note of affirmation in your pocket, maybe it's calling on a friend or a loved one and talking through it.
Anything that makes sense to you. As in most things, theres no one size fits all rule.
There’s something that works for you and that's the thing you've got to do.
So, sit for a minute, reflect on the exercise with an open mind.
You’ve got this.
You are absolutely amazing, unique and capable.
Trust Yourself.