How to develop Trust in Yourself

Trust in yourself and stop the externalization! Relying on external factors to change your life for the better means to hand over the responsibility for your life to untrustworthy third parties and this is an issue that permeates our whole society on every level. We literally grow up with it and get used to it right from the beginning of life. Most times, we wait for external influences to suddenly show up and change our life for the positive. But the thing is, we have already everything we need for this change. You don’t need externals to help you when you trust in yourself, see how to go about it;

1. Take responsibility for your life

The first step to developing faith in oneself has nothing to do with becoming overly confident, but with taking responsibility for one’s mistakes and failures. Playing the blame game makes you become the victim that is helpless and cannot change its fate. In short, you will always depend on others in some way or the other, when playing the “blaming victim”. But in reality, you are only as long in a helpless situation for as long as you choose to play the blame game. But once you set yourself free from passing the blame to others you have taken the necessary responsibility for your life, which is the foundation for having trust in oneself.

2. Forgive yourself

Acknowledging one’s responsibility for the mistakes and failures in life should come hand in hand with the willingness to forgive yourself for these. Instead of blaming yourself for the mistakes you committed in the past, try to discover the lessons these failures or mistakes might have taught you. Thereby, you will understand the higher purpose underlying each and every one of your failures. It furthermore will help you to avoid making similar mistakes again. Forgive yourself, by discovering the valuable lessons each and every one of your failures taught you.

3. Come to terms with your past

The story of the past is open to dispute, but there is one fact about it that no one can deny: the past cannot be changed. Wrong actions cannot be revoked, hurtful words cannot be withdrawn and the events you wish would never have happened cannot be changed. Just as much as anyone else I wish I never committed the biggest mistakes in my life, but I do know that all of them have become an inevitable part of my life, whether I accept it or not. With this in mind, it becomes even clearer that worrying about what happened in the past and blaming it for your present situation will lead you next to nowhere. All it does is create just more pain and insecurities when facing a similar situation in the present. In order to regain the faith in yourself, come to terms with the past, accept that what’s been done is done without any hope of changing it. The only thing you can influence is the present; you can now start building a brighter future or remaining in remorse about the past for the rest of your life.

4. Follow your heart/intuition

Having trust in oneself does not only imply that you have faith in your abilities and skills, but also that you are courageous enough to follow your intuition, whenever this inner guidance and wisdom gives you advice. It takes a lot of courage to follow where the heart leads, especially when the ego/rational mind suggests you not do, but it also takes a lot of faith in oneself to do so. Therefore, listening to your intuition will strengthen the trust you have in yourself, allowing you to further rely on your own strengths and abilities.

5. Trusting yourself vs. seeking advice from others

Seeking the counsel and guidance of another person, when having to meet a life-changing decision, can be a very important thing. It might help you to see things from another perspective and gives you the opportunity to learn from the wisdom your guide has gathered throughout his life. The exchange with others can be very supportive; it will show you new possibilities where you had not expected an alternative, new solutions and different approaches, when confronted with a seemingly unsolvable problem.

6. Become the master of your life

Become the master of your life in order to increase the faith you have in yourself. Be your own guru, instead of looking up to others. You are the one and only who has all the knowledge about every aspect of your being, ranging from your character to the experiences you have made and the difficulties you are facing in life. No one else does have this sort of knowledge, except you.