How to Trust Yourself Again 

Are you someone who is always questioning your decisions, or perhaps you have a hard time making good ones? You’re not alone. This is something that happens to many people. Understand that this doesn’t make you broken or behind. 

Learning to trust again is something that you can do. Just like you can rebuild trust with others, you can do it with yourself as well. 

In this article, I’m going to share with you how to rebuild trust in yourself.

Self- trust is having confidence that you will make the right choices and decisions for yourself. It means at the end of the day, you know the right thing to do for yourself, regardless of what anyone else has to say about it. 

Trusting in yourself is so important because it allows you to feel safe within yourself. When you don’t trust yourself, then you open yourself up to other people’s influence and the possibility that they will make decisions for you. Not trusting yourself is a quick way to lose your power. See, when you don’t trust yourself, you tend to look to other people to make life decisions, and they decide what’s best for you. You give them the power over your life. 

When you don’t trust yourself, it can be easy to confuse fear with intuition. It becomes easier to create scenarios in your head and make decisions based on fear. When you fully trust yourself, your intuition is the main driver of your decisions. It tells you what the right decision is for you. 

Another thing is that when you don’t trust yourself, you become an unsafe place for yourself.  You have a lot of different voices going on, pulling you in different directions. Not to mention your nervous system is all over the place because it doesn’t feel safe.  

If you grew up always being criticized or controlled, it can become very hard for you to trust yourself when you get older. You always had to question your worth and wonder if you were ever good enough. Eventually, after being criticized for so long (especially when it starts at a young age), you may have begun to believe what was said to you.

In the past, you made mistakes or bad decisions. It can be easy to dwell on past mistakes or bad decisions, especially when they are still playing on your mind. They can get in the way of making the right decisions for yourself now. 

Maybe you were told that you were wrong a lot by adults whom you trusted as a child. Over time, this creates distrust within yourself. You begin to look to other people to make choices for you.  I get it. When you are told you are wrong all the time, this can convince your mind that you are, even though it’s not true.

This leads me into the next one. You are living for someone else’s approval instead of what you want. You become so used to what other people think that you become disconnected from yourself. This can eventually make you always put other people first and completely neglect yourself.

You overthink decisions—even the simple ones. Overthinking can keep you in “survival mode,” which signals to your nervous system that something is wrong. Every decision, even the small ones become heavy. 

You ask other people’s permission instead of trusting your inner voice. Again, this is really what it boils down to. When you don’t trust yourself, you tend to look outside of yourself for decisions in your life. You look for things to be “okay” from other people because you aren’t sure of yourself. 

You ignore your intuition. This goes back to what I was saying about making decisions based on fear instead of your intuition. I’m not a big believer in making decisions based on your emotions. If you look around, when people make decisions based on emotions, they tend not to make the best decisions, especially when that decision is made from fear. I believe in making decisions based on logic and intuition. 

You feel anxious after making choices. Your nervous system has to ask itself, “Am I safe?” Your body continues to stay on alert because it doesn’t feel safe. 

You feel stuck and unsure most of the time. Not trusting yourself makes you indecisive. When you’re indecisive, this can make you feel stuck. If you are stuck, then you are more likely not to take action. Taking action is what moves people forward. 

The truth is, when you want to start trusting yourself again, it will require you to change the way you think. 

You will probably make a mistake, but that doesn’t mean you can’t trust yourself. Look, we are all human, and of course, we will make mistakes, but if anything, look at the mistakes as a lesson that you can learn from. If we always made the “right” decision all the time, then we would never grow in our mindset, and it would be hard to build trust in ourselves. Making mistakes tells you that you can handle situations and outcomes even if everything doesn’t always turn out the way you like. It prevents you from turning away from yourself when things don’t go the way you hoped. Everyone learns through trial and error,

You don’t need approval to be right. Not trusting yourself for so long may have caused you to get permission or approval from other people, and consulting yourself wasn’t even an option. Doing this is a sure way not reconnect to your intuition. You need your intuition. It helps when making decisions for yourself. 

To connect back to it, you have to understand that you don’t need approval from others to be right. Self-trust grows through action, not thinking. Even if the action is small, taking action is one step towards trusting yourself again. 

Did something happen? Was there a moment that you started to doubt yourself? Did you make a big mistake, or was there a repeated failure?
Write it down and be very honest with yourself.

Start with a tiny decision. When you start with a small decision, they slowly keep working up to bigger ones. Making these small everyday choices helps to build confidence. These decisions are so small that you don’t need to check in with others. The small decisions feel a lot safer and don’t carry a lot of pressure like the big decisions. They also help you reconnect with your intuition. 

Use your feelings as signals, but don’t rely heavily on them. What I mean by this is listen to your feelings, how does this this desicions make me feel? Am I confident or happy about this desicion or am I fearful right now and am trying to choose out of fear? Look at your feelings first, assess them. And then move forward.

Part of not trusting yourself comes from over-explaining your choices to other people. When you do this, you open yourself up to their opinions of the situation, which can confuse you even more. It can be caused by caring too much about what other people think. You don’t need to justify your decisions. What’s the worst that can happen? You make a mistake, but you learn from it. 

Keep your decisions simple at first.  

Tell yourself that your feelings and thoughts matter. Speak to yourself and say, “It’s okay to feel this way.” Practicing self-validation helps you to build confidence in yourself, and it helps you to understand yourself. It will allow you to possibly have better relationships because when you trust yourself, you can trust others. Here are some phrases that you can use to practice self-validation:

• I am allowed to make mistakes.
• I deserve kindness, even from myself.
• It’s okay to feel this way.
• My feelings are real and important.
• I trust myself to figure it out.

If you say you’re going to do something for yourself, do it even if it’s just something small. When you do this regularly, you begin to build trust with yourself because you know that you can be counted on; consistency is key. 

Be aware when you feel tense, heavy, or anxious, etc., ask yourself where in my body am I feeling this? If you feel tense or uneasy, do some stretches or deep breathing.  Relaxation and mindfulness are key. 

Think about a time when you had a friend or family member to whom you gave support. What did you say to them? Use that same supportive language with yourself, especially when you are making decisions.

Understand what you need at the moment. Also, take care of yourself. When you’re tired, rest, and when you’re hungry, eat healthy to nourish your mind and body.

• Are there any decisions that I am afraid to make? If so, what are they?
• Deep down, do I already know the answer? 
• If I fully trusted myself, what decision would I make?

Learning to trust yourself again won’t happen overnight, but I encourage you to start today. You can learn to start trusting yourself again without anyone else’s approval. 

What’s one step you will take today to start trusting yourself again?