What Does It Mean to Trust Ourselves?

For a long time, I think I connected keeping a commitment to myself with keeping my word. If I said I was going to do something, I should follow through.

Most of us understand this really well when the commitment involves somebody else. We turn up for work. We keep appointments. We collect the kids when we said we would. We help a friend. We show up when somebody is relying on us.

We know what it means to be dependable.

Yet the things we’ve promised ourselves can be much easier to move. The walk gets pushed back. The conversation gets avoided. The boundary gets softened. The thing we said mattered to us gets bumped down the list again.

And I do think following through is part of self-trust. We build trust in ourselves when our own intentions have weight too. When the things we say matter to us have a genuine place in our lives.

Self-trust can show up in very ordinary moments. Saying no when something doesn’t feel right. Having the conversation we’ve been putting off. Making a decision without asking five other people what they think first. Taking the time we said we needed. Doing something we promised ourselves we would do.

And sometimes trusting ourselves means changing our mind.

Maybe we agreed to something and later realise we don’t actually have the capacity for it. Maybe we made a decision that felt right, then somebody else questioned it and suddenly we’re questioning ourselves too. Maybe we had a plan for the day and something genuinely shifted.

It can be hard to tell what’s really going on. Have we changed direction because something has changed? Or have we moved away from what we knew because guilt, pressure, fear or somebody else’s opinion got louder?

Sometimes the hardest part isn’t knowing what we want. It’s staying with what we know when there’s a lot of noise around us.

Other people’s expectations. Advice. Fear of disappointing someone. The old habit of saying yes. The worry that we might get it wrong.

There can be a lot of noise around health too. Fast for this long. Eat this much protein. Get your steps in. Strength train. Sleep eight hours. Do this. Avoid that.

A plan can be incredibly useful. It gives us structure and helps turn an intention into something practical. And part of trusting ourselves is being able to use the plan while still paying attention to what’s happening in our own body and life.

We might wake up after a poor night’s sleep and decide the workout we planned can wait. We might realise we need food earlier than expected. We might feel great and choose to keep going with what we planned.

Knowing what supports us and learning to recognise what our body needs today can both be true at the same time.

The same thing happens outside health. We can know a boundary is right for us and still feel uncomfortable holding it. We can know which decision feels right and still wobble when somebody disagrees. We can know we need rest and still feel guilty taking it. We can know something matters to us and still keep putting it behind everything else.

Knowing is one part. Responding to what we know is where the trust gets built.

Sometimes that means following through even when we’d rather put it off. Sometimes it means adjusting the plan. Sometimes it means holding our ground. Sometimes it means changing our mind.

I think a useful question to ask ourselves is:

Am I making this choice because it feels right for me, or because something else has become louder?

Maybe that tells us more than simply asking whether we stuck to the plan.

Because self-trust is about listening to ourselves, taking our own needs and intentions seriously, and responding accordingly. Sometimes that means following through. Sometimes it means adjusting.

The skill is learning to tell the difference.

Body, Mind & Beyond