What’s It Going to Take to Trust Myself?
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Learning to Build self esteem, One Step at a Time
Trusting yourself isn’t just a mindset—it’s a skill you build over time. It’s not about perfection or always making the “right” choice. It’s about learning to listen to your inner voice, act in alignment with your values, and treat yourself with compassion when things don’t go as planned.
For many people—especially those navigating difficult feelings like anger or shame—self-trust doesn’t come quickly. Past criticism, rejection, heart break or trauma can chip away at your self esteem until doubt becomes your default.
So how do you begin to trust yourself again?
Here are five key practices to help you rebuild that foundation.
- Get Curious About Your Doubts
Before you can trust yourself, it helps to understand why you don’t. When you second-guess yourself, whose inner voice are you hearing? A parent? A former teacher or partner?
We often internalise critical voices from the past and mistake them for our own. Start observing when and why self-doubt shows up.
Try This:
Keep a journal and track the moments when you doubt yourself.
Ask, “What am I afraid will happen if I trust myself here?”
Quite often, it is fear that arises and by getting down to the underwriting fear you can then address it more appropriately – holding yourself with care and compassion.
- Start With Small Decisions
Self-trust grows through consistency, not grand gestures. Each time you listen to your gut, speak up when you feel uncomfortable, or follow through on a promise to yourself, you reinforce your ability to trust your own judgment.
Try This:
Practice with low-stakes choices—what to eat, wear, or do with your time.
Let your decisions reflect your preferences, not what you think others expect.
Consider how your future self will benefit from the healthier choice.
- Stop Outsourcing Your Inner Authority
It’s normal to seek advice, but constantly relying on others can disconnect you from your inner compass. Your opinion matters, and deep down inside of you, you often already know what’s best for you.
Try This:
Before asking someone else for input, pause and reflect:
“What do I think or feel about this first?”
Write this down and weigh up the pros and cons.
Only after you have done this, you could consider going to a trusted friend or someone you respect to get their feedback. It’s important here that it’s someone you value and that they value you in order to give you the honest kind of reflection that is necessary for your best interest at heart.
- Own Your Mistakes Without Shame
Trusting yourself doesn’t mean you’ll never make a mistake. It means knowing you can recover without tearing yourself down. People who trust themselves have learned to learn from setbacks, not use them as proof of failure. They see the learning experience as just another step towards improving, not as a reflection of themselves being a failure.
Try This:
Instead of saying, “I knew I’d mess this up,” try “What can I learn from this to improve?”
- Heal the Root Wounds
If trusting yourself feels especially difficult, deeper emotional wounds may be involved, like betrayal, rejection, abandonment, or neglect. In these cases, working with a therapist can offer the safety and support you need to heal and reconnect with yourself. Sometimes we internalise the rejection, abandonment or neglect we experienced as being something about us – that we did something wrong as opposed to the incompetence of another. From that position, it would be very difficult to trust ourselves again if we carry the full weight of responsibility of an experience. This can be crippling and, therefore, becomes really necessary to unpick an experience with a skilled therapist to reflect back to you the value of your own hurt and unattended needs. Once you do this, you can then make better decisions that reflect you value your needs.
Try This:
Reach out for help. You don’t have to do this work alone.
Therapy can be a powerful space to rebuild the trust that may have been broken long ago. Working with a therapist allows you to feel what a healthy relationship is like so that you can let go of any previous hurt, shame and toxic experiences and begin to integrate what valuing and trusting your own feelings means.
Self-trust is not a one-time achievement—it’s a relationship you build over time. It’s the daily choice to be kind, patient, and honest with yourself, even when it feels uncomfortable. Even if it means you have to sit in the discomfort of disappointing another. Maybe sometimes we can’t bear letting someone else down because we know only too well the excruciating pain of being let down. Yet, in that decision to attend to another, we are faced with letting ourselves down internally again. It is such a tricky balance, and this is where radical self honesty comes in. You have to be truthful about what your internal resources really are; how much are you able to contribute, and if you cannot attend to another, trust that the other person values your boundaries to not demand more or shame you into complying. If they begin to manipulate you, it might be that you have to become creative about setting firmer boundaries.
It may take some time to feel fully confident trusting yourself, and that’s okay. Remember, the human psyche – like nature – ebbs and flows. Just remember, each moment you listen to yourself, speak your truth, or honour your boundaries, you lay another brick in the foundation of lasting inner trust. You become your own hero.
Remember – You are worthy of trusting yourself.
And with practice, you’ll prove to yourself that you already have everything you need inside of you.