WHY WE STRUGGLE TO TRUST OURSELVES
When You Already Know... But Still Ask Everyone Else
Have you ever made a decision, then immediately started asking other people what they think?
You speak to one friend, then another. You ask someone who knows you well. You might even ask somebody who has almost nothing to do with the situation just because you want another opinion.
And sometimes, underneath all of that, you already know how you feel.
I've seen this in completely different areas of life. Someone can be incredibly confident running a business but struggle to trust themselves in a relationship. An athlete can make split-second decisions under pressure but spend weeks questioning a major career move. Someone else might know a job no longer feels right but keep asking everyone around them whether leaving is a mistake.
Self-trust isn't always about confidence.
Sometimes it's about whether we believe we can make a decision without needing somebody else to make us feel safe about it first.
How We Can Lose Trust in Our Own Judgement
I don't think people suddenly wake up one day and stop trusting themselves.
It can build over time.
Maybe you've made decisions in the past that didn't work out and now you're scared of getting another one wrong. Maybe somebody regularly questioned your judgement. Maybe you spent years in an environment where other people made most of the important decisions or where your feelings were dismissed.
Through coaching and NLP, I often look at the meaning someone has attached to previous experiences.
Making one bad decision can easily become “I make bad decisions.”
Being wrong about someone can become “I can't trust my judgement of people.”
Having a relationship end can become “I should have seen it coming.”
The experience happened once, but the belief we created from it can follow us much further.
That's where I think we have to separate what happened from what we decided it meant about us.
“Self-trust isn't knowing you'll make the right decision. It's trusting yourself enough to deal with what happens after you make it.”
Reassurance Can Help... Until We Need It
There is nothing wrong with asking for advice.
I do it. Most people do.
Other people can see things we can't see because they're not emotionally involved in the same way. Good advice can stop us making unnecessary mistakes and sometimes somebody who knows us well can challenge something we need to hear.
The problem starts when advice becomes permission.
You ask someone what they think, they reassure you and you feel better for a while. Then doubt comes back, so you ask again.
At that point we're not always looking for new information.
We're looking for the uncomfortable feeling to disappear.
And the more we rely on somebody else to remove that feeling, the harder it can become to learn that we're capable of sitting with uncertainty ourselves.
Research Insight: The Reassurance Cycle
There is some interesting research around this.
A meta-analysis of 38 studies involving 6,973 people looked at excessive reassurance seeking and found it was associated with depression. A separate analysis of 16 studies also found a smaller association with interpersonal rejection. That doesn't mean asking for reassurance causes either of those things or that looking for support is unhealthy. The research is specifically about excessive reassurance seeking and the cycle that can develop around it.
What I take from that is something simple.
Reassurance can make us feel better.
But if we need reassurance every time doubt appears, we don't always get the chance to build confidence in our own ability to handle the doubt.
Sometimes self-trust grows because nobody gives us the guarantee we wanted and we discover that we were still okay.
High Performers Can Trust Themselves in One Life and Doubt Themselves in Another
This is something I think is especially important for high performers.
Confidence isn't always transferable.
You can trust yourself with money but not relationships. You can trust yourself professionally but question yourself emotionally. You can lead hundreds of people while still asking your closest friends what one person's text message means.
That doesn't make somebody weak or inconsistent.
Different areas of our life touch different experiences and different parts of our identity.
The person who is completely calm in a boardroom might feel very different when rejection, intimacy or uncertainty becomes involved.
Understanding that matters because otherwise we start telling ourselves things like “I should be better at this.”
Maybe you shouldn't.
Maybe this is simply an area where you're still learning about yourself.
Self-Trust Doesn't Mean Ignoring People
I also think we need to be careful with the advice to “just trust yourself.”
There are times when we're wrong.
Sometimes people around us can see something we're refusing to see. Sometimes emotion clouds our judgement and sometimes we genuinely don't have enough information yet.
Self-trust isn't believing every thought we have.
It's being able to listen to other people, take in information and still remain connected to our own judgement.
You can ask for advice without handing somebody else the decision.
You can change your mind without deciding that your first thought made you stupid.
And you can make a decision that doesn't work out without losing trust in yourself completely.
That's important because nobody gets every decision right.
Two Lives Theory: Learning to Hear Your Own Voice Again
This connects strongly with Two Lives Theory because the person we were in one chapter might have relied heavily on approval, reassurance or certainty.
Maybe that was needed at the time.
Maybe you were learning.
Maybe you didn't have enough experience yet or perhaps trusting somebody else felt safer than trusting yourself.
But as we grow, there can come a point where constantly looking outside ourselves starts creating more confusion instead of less.
Everybody has an opinion.
One person tells you to leave. Another tells you to stay. Someone tells you to take the risk and somebody else thinks you're crazy.
Eventually, you still have to live the decision.
The next chapter might not be about ignoring everyone else's voice.
It might be about making sure you can still hear your own amongst all of them.
A Moment to Reflect
Think about an area of your life where you're currently questioning yourself.
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Do I genuinely need more information or am I looking for reassurance?
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Whose opinion do I trust more than my own and why?
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What past experience might be affecting the way I see this decision?
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If nobody could tell me what to do, what would I currently feel drawn towards?
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What would trusting myself look like even if the outcome wasn't guaranteed?
You don't need to force an answer.
Sometimes self-trust starts with noticing how quickly we look somewhere else for one.
My Final Thoughts
I don't think self-trust means becoming completely certain about yourself.
There are decisions I've made that worked and decisions I would make differently now. That's part of life.
The goal can't be getting everything right.
For me, self-trust is knowing that I can make the best decision I can with what I know today and if life shows me something different tomorrow, I can respond to that too.
We can listen to advice, we can ask for help, we can admit when we're wrong and none of those things take away from self-trust.
Sometimes the strongest version of self-trust is simply knowing that whatever the decision brings, you'll still be there to meet yourself on the other side of it.
One Last Thing...
How did this feel for you?
If you've found yourself constantly second-guessing your decisions, looking for reassurance or struggling to hear your own voice amongst everybody else's, you can {Request Mentorship} and we can explore what's sitting underneath that.
You don't need to have every answer.
Sometimes you need to start trusting the person who's going to live with them.
I look forward to connecting.
Speak soon,
Basim
