So many of the fears that threaten to hold us back and keep us small are rooted in a lack of confidence in ourselves and limited faith in what we can accomplish. By building trust in yourself, you allow yourself to live boldly. But how do we build that trust? Here’s what I’ve learned is the key to building trust in yourself and ultimately living a bigger, bolder life.
As soon as you trust yourself, you will know how to live.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
A couple of months ago, I had a lengthy Zoom chat with a new friend I had met through an Authors’ Roundtable. We dove right into an intense conversation as if we had known each other for decades instead of hours.
Breezy, fun, and incredibly bright, he was quick to divulge deep details about his life and work. He then asked me to share my stories of how I came to live and work in the world the way I do.
He listened intently, and when I finished, he said something that has gripped me ever since: “What strikes me, Susie, is a theme of self-trust running through your life. It seems to have powered all of your very brave decisions and choices.”
Oddly, I had never viewed my life this way. He is 100% correct.
When I think back on the big decisions I have made, I cannot point to a single instance when I was “qualified” to do the thing, the job, the investment.
Whether it was my first job out of college working as a sales associate for 13 brokers at Merrill Lynch in Boston, taking a job as a production editor at HarperCollins in London (I read The Chicago Manual of Style on the plane!), launching a nonprofit organization (with zero experience), starting a real estate firm with no money during the Great Recession, writing my vulnerable truths and publishing them, and/or traveling around the world alone, I followed a pretty basic formula—decide, trust myself, and go for it.
Building Trust in Yourself: How It Starts
Where did this self-trust come from?
A box of matches from a hotel in Hong Kong.
When I was 15 years old, I traveled to Asia with my dad on one of his buying trips for his shop. After the first day of my trailing him to endless vendors in Hong Kong, Dad decided I needed to experience the true glory of the city as well as autonomy.
At dinner in the hotel restaurant that evening, Dad hatched a plan.
“Hey, Charlie Banana, how about you go exploring on your own? Go walk around the streets, go to see the sites, go on a tour, go shopping…do whatever you like!”
I was thrilled and horrified.
“But, Dad, I don’t speak the language here,” I said. “I don’t have a map or know my way around. What happens if I get lost?”
Dad retrieved a box of matches from a glass ashtray on the table and placed the box in my hand. “Go wherever you like, go see it all! Then, when you are ready to come back, hail a cab, and give the driver these matches. They will take you right here. I’ll meet you each evening for dinner, and you can tell me all about your adventures.”
Think about this for a moment. I was 15 years old. Cell phones would not be a part of daily life for another fifteen years. I was traveling around Hong Kong on my own.
It was glorious!
The moment Dad dropped the box of matches into my hand, while holding supreme levels of confidence and trust in me, I absorbed every energetic morsel of that sweet faith and conviction into the core of my being.
His trust in me became my self-trust.
Notice, he didn’t helicopter-parent me (hardly!). Rather, he encouraged me to explore and gave me a very easy way to feel confident as I strolled around in foreign territory. No matter how far off the main thoroughfares I wandered, I could always find my way back.
I knew that that box of matches was my ticket to be as bold as I dared. For me, building trust in yourself starts with creating safety and assurance.
Building Trust in Yourself by Finding Your Box of Matches
What is it that you dream of doing, but gnawing fears have always held you back and/or kept you living small? It’s time to start living big by building trust in yourself.
Take out your journal and write for a few minutes. What is your solo stroll around Hong Kong? What feels like freedom when you see it in your mind’s eye? What brings you alive like nothing else?
Next, decide what could serve as your box of matches. What would feel like a sweet safety net as you live and work in audacious, venturesome ways? Creating a tether to safety is such a powerful way to start building trust in yourself.
And building trust in yourself is all you need to escape to your Big Life.
I’ll meet you there.
