Many people’s low self-trust goes unchecked and even gets worse over time because of one basic misunderstanding about what causes it: It’s not events from your past that make it hard to trust yourself; it’s your habits in the present. If you want to start trusting yourself more, look out for these subtle psychological habits sabotaging your trust and work to eliminate them:
Dwelling on the Past
- If you struggle to trust yourself, it could be because you’ve gotten into the bad habit of ruminating on the past, especially mistakes or misfortunes
- You can tell when it’s slipped into unhealthy rumination by these two signs: It’s not productive and it’s compulsive
- Healthy reflection leads to new insights and behaviour change. Unhealthy rumination keeps going and going without actually resulting in any benefit
Worrying about the future
- Worry is fundamentally different from effective planning and problem-solving
- The only thing worry leads to is stress and anxiety in the moment and low self-confidence and lack of trust in the long-term
- We worry because it does do something for us – worry gives us the illusion of control
- Ultimately, worry is a trap: You can’t control nearly as much as you would like
Reassurance-seeking
- Reassurance-seeking is essentially outsourcing the hard work of managing difficult emotions to someone else
- If you habitually shirk the responsibility of managing your own painful emotions, you’re telling your brain that you can’t handle them yourself
- There’s nothing wrong with leaning on friends or family for emotional support, but do not do so without working through things yourself first
Trusting your emotions
- There’s a huge difference between listening to your emotions and blindingly trusting them
- Your emotions will lead you astray just as often as they will help you
- Culturally, we tend to put emotions up on a pedestal and romanticize them, but in reality, they are just one of many aspects of the human experience-not any more special or authoritative than any other mental capacity
Ignoring your curiosity
- A lot of people gave up on childhood dreams and passions because they weren’t approved of by their parents or other authority figures
- The best way to start rebuilding trust in yourself is to have the courage to follow your curiosity and pursue the things you are authentically interested in, even if it goes against the grain of what society or your spouse or whoever thinks
Perfectionism
- It is a result of all-or-nothing thinking: If I don’t get an A+ I’m a failure
- If she doesn’t love me, I’m unloveable
- It kills your emotional confidence-your belief in your ability to do the right thing despite not feeling the way you want
- If you’re holding yourself to impossibly high standards, you’re never going to trust yourself to reach them
Procrastination
- When you procrastinate, you’ve broken a promise to yourself
- You’re teaching your brain that you can’t be trusted to follow through on your commitments
- If you’re in a habit of chronically procrastinating, it’s no surprise you also struggle to trust yourself
