How To Build Trust In Yourself?

[Grant6]

I have been doing some reflecting on the quality of my life, and why I feel so much anxiety throughout each week. I have recently been taking self-care more seriously in order to improve my self-esteem, and one important facet of that is building trust in myself. But I would like to find some proven ways that actually helps build trust, ideally something I can do consistently that can become a daily routine/habit. Anybody have thoughts on this?

[Ulax]

^Helped me

[Flowerfaeiry]

I have a history with not being able to trust myself, like I don’t believe my intuitions. But I’ve been learning to see that they are often right. So I look for evidence that I am trustworthy. If I have an intuition about something but I ignore it thinking it’s wrong and then it later turns out to be true, I use that as proof that I am trustworthy.

[Michael569]

That's a really interesting observation. 

You could think about it from a perspective of "what makes you trust other people". Like what is the defining difference between someone you know you can trust and someone you know you can't. I'd say it is a combination of factors main one being 'evidence of past actions'. If someone consistently delivers on their promise, you learn that person can be trusted. On the other hand, we all know someone who never does what they promise to do. 

Your mind works the same way. You can only begin trusting yourself if you give yourself sufficient evidence that you can be relied upon by yourself.  So each time you promise to yourself , for example, "I'l start XYZ tomorrow" and you don't, your brain loses trust in your ability to be relied upon. And each time you deliver on that, the self trust is strengthened. 

You start by taking your own commitments to yourself seriously. You don't squander these promises the way it is often being done by many people (I'll start losing weight tomorrow, I'll start eating healthy next month, I'll do this and that....and then nothing, year after year, promise after promise broken).  Each broken promise impacts the executive function of your brain, you learn that promises are there to be broken. Its kinda like squandering your attention watching reels and then wondering why you can't read a single book in a year....deep neurological adaptation has happened

And one way to start reversing that is not to overpromise if you know you struggle with the delivery. So you make fewer promises to yourself but the ones you do, you do your best to deliver. And so your brain starts trusting you, the parts of your brain responsible for wilful commitment strengthen, overtime resistance to take action diminishes and things become easier to do. 

The second part of this is a bit deeper and it is "why do you struggle to deliver" and it might be that the things you are trying to do are in misalignment with your guiding principles. If you value freedom & creativity while struggling to complete an 8-hour manual excel spreadsheet report that kills creativity and freedome, maybe the problem is that you're in the wrong job. So it is important to be mindful of that. 

Because when you do things that match your guiding principles and values and things you find meaningful, your brain will reward you with dopamine while pursuing these and it will be much easier to commit. That being said, it is still normal to struggle even with things you find meaningful..we all do. 

Hope that helps 

Edited April 28 by Michael569

[LordFall]

Read the book the 6 pillars of self-esteem by Nathaniel Branden and setup small goals and missions that you can accomplish in a small period of time that are meaningful to you. You can't really build self-trust out of nowhere, your brain needs proof not promises. If you can show yourself that you can keep your commitment though you'll have proof that you're a trustworthy person that has his/her own back. 

[hyruga]

Stop trying to act cool. Take more action and you will believe in yourself more!

[Yimpa]

What is it that you fear?