The Small Things That Build Your Self-Trust
If you read my Q3 review you will know that this current season of my work is fraught with what I’m calling “opportunities for doubt” and practical pitfalls. With the protracted end of a relationship and the shouldering of all the financial responsibilities, I now need my business to step up for me financially (and probably emotionally too). My trust in myself to actually do this has been tested pretty much as rigorously as it can be the last few weeks. I must admit that there have been periods where I didn’t build a steady level of self-trust (because I’m human!), and there have been lots of times where I nearly folded on my carefully laid plans. But I haven’t, and in fact, I am (mostly!) more optimistic than ever.
What this period continues to prove to me is twofold: how vital self-trust is in maintaining and enjoying your business, and how that trust itself is built in the small things not the big. Let’s face it, this business thing isn’t exactly fun when you’re doubting your every decision; nor do you make meaningful progress when you’re always backtracking and changing your mind. As with everything meaningful, self-trust is not something you can sit down and nail in an afternoon. It is an unfolding thing that flourishes with time and practice and the ongoing choosing of yourself.
I thought today I would share the key things that have helped me stay the course in this season and how I’ve seen my self-trust become stronger.
KNOW WHAT IT FEELS LIKE NOT JUST WHAT IT LOOKS LIKE
One of the biggest changes I’ve made over the last year is to aim for a feeling of success rather than the visible markers of success – because when you’re striving for what it looks like, it always feels so far away. By identifying success or fulfilment with a feeling, you get to experience it here in the every day rather than just at some point in the distant future. A side effect of this is that you also become much more attuned to what else your body is trying to tell you through your feelings.
Over the last six months I knew something was wrong because I felt it in my body even though my head was trying to convince me otherwise. Because I knew what I wanted fulfilment to feel like I was able to identify that my thoughts of an alternative future felt the same way and knew that was the right path.
ACCEPT YOUR BLOCKS AND WORK WITH THEM
I’ve found that going through a major life change has given me a “f*ck it, let’s just empty out the whole can of worms on the floor” kind of attitude, and an openness to look at and understand every worm. Usually we try to keep the lid firmly on the can, and if a little worm escapes we will not look at it, as if acknowledgement will make it rear up and attack us. So all our blocks and fears swirl around us in the shadows, and we either daren’t look at them or try desperately to shove them back inside the can.
The thing is, this is what the blocks and fears want you to do. They want you to spend time and energy on them rather than on the work you’re here to do – but when you look them in the eye and treat them with curiosity, they lose their power. A block that kept coming up for me was a “yeah but what if” block – “yeah but what if none of this works, you should probably just stop planning this and go back to doing something safe”. By looking this in the eye and saying “well let’s see what happens first”, and trusting that the plan I had in place was good enough, I could alleviate that block and literally feel the relief and confidence wash over me.
DO ONLY WHAT’S ALIGNED WITH YOUR VALUES
One of the ways that low self-trust shows up and sabotages us is in the actions we take. When you are doing things out of panic, or because someone said that you should, or you see someone else doing it and not because you’ve consciously chose those things because they will get you where you want to go – then you’re not acting from a place of self-trust.
One of the things my “yeah but what if” block wanted me to do was take on some 121 clients to help shore me up financially. There’s nothing inherently wrong with doing that, but it does go against my whole focus for this year, and my vision of fulfilment (and frankly, doing it just for the money isn’t good for me or any hypothetical client!). I swung back and forth on this pendulum, at night thinking it might be ok but then in the morning knowing it would be totally wrong for me. Eventually though, I knew that the 121 idea came from a place of panic and what I should do rather than a place of alignment with my values, so I brought it back to focusing on creation for The Trail and plans for better promoting my courses instead. Don’t get me wrong, this is a much scarier option! But even though it’s scarier, it also feels better.
WORK TOWARDS AND WITHIN
Much of what I’ve described here can be summed up in my mantra of Towards and Within – where you are working towards your goals and fulfilment, whilst simultaneously working within it by finding ways to have those feelings day to day. In times of stress especially, but actually all the time, it’s easy to martyr ourselves now for a distant future happiness by working long hours or denying ourselves pleasure.
The last few weeks I’ve been baking (for the first time in about five years). I’ve not been working sixteen hour days and I’ve not been piling things onto the to do list – in fact I’ve become so attuned to what my most effective tasks are that I’m struggling to find more things to do. Basically I’m staying close to the point of all this – that if I don’t feel good, then I might as well not be doing it.
I, genuinely, have The Trail to thank for all of this. As I’ve been developing the Inward Attainment Map I couldn’t escape the very real knowledge that I was not fulfilled, and could not be fulfilled, in my life as I knew it. Creating the tools and resources of The Trail helped me to practice what I was preaching, and almost everything covered in those post is drawn out in more ‘how to’ detail in various exercises and resources in The Trail. If you would like to find out more and join, you can do so here.
