One Thing

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Has anyone ever said to you, "just trust yourself," and you wondered how to do that?

Many of us trust other people to tell us what to do more than we trust ourselves to know deep inside what to do. 

Sometimes our self-talk may sound like:

How do you know you are making the right decision?
What if you are wrong?
How do you know that you have considered every possible outcome?
What if others aren't happy with this decision?
How do you know that you have all of the information?
How do you know you are right?

Many things we can never know for sure until hindsight gives us some perspective. But, we have to have a level of trust in our decision making to move forward. 

To build trust with things or a brand, we have to test its reliability. When we experience reliability time after time, then we trust it.

I trust my phone battery to last all day.
I trust my car to start in the morning.
I trust my dogs will run to the door when they hear the doorbell. 
I trust my oven to stop warming at 350 degrees, when I set the dial to that number. 
I trust McDonald's french fries to taste like McDonald's french fries. 
These are things I have witnessed over and over again, so I trust that it will happen this time too. 

We have to train our brain to count on ourselves. Here is a helpful exercise to get started...

One Thing
To build a sense of trusting yourself to follow through with things that are good for you, choose one thing you will do every day for the next 30 days.

Without fail, do that thing.

It doesn't matter what time of day it gets done, but make sure each day it happens. After proving to yourself you can be consistent for 30 days, you will notice that your self-talk becomes more confident about your commitments.

You are training your brain to trust you.

Here are some ideas that clients have had success with:

  • making the bed every day

  • drinking a glass of water first thing in the morning

  • cleaning trash out of the car before going to bed each night

  • putting keys in the same spot every time

  • picking up a book rather than scrolling on their phone before sleep

  • writing a journal entry

  • a one mile walk

  • take a multi-vitamin every day

  • make a three-item gratitude list every night

  • hug their spouse when they enter the house

  • floss their teeth

  • pause to silently pray before eating

  • sit in silence for ten minutes

Choose something that you can commit to doing every day with no exceptions or excuses. Be smart about what you select, you are trying to train your brain to count on you, not feed your inner critic with a failure opportunity.

Many times self-sabotage stems from not trusting yourself to follow through and then quitting something you pledged to do. Take this 30 day challenge and you will see that you can easily re-learn to trust yourself.

When we can trust ourselves on the small stuff, we can better trust ourselves on the big decisions.

Think about this exercise as a commitment you would make to a friend. You might be more reliable to your friends than you are to yourself. Yup! 🙋🏻‍♀️

Treat yourself like a friend whom you are promising to help. 

Eleanor Roosevelt is quoted as saying: “Friendship with oneself is all important, because without it one cannot be friends with anyone else in the world.”

This is an interesting thing to think about. And, building self-trust is a step towards living into greater compassion for yourself and others. 

Sending you love,