Trust yourself. Create the kind of self that you will be happy to live with all your life. Make the most of yourself by fanning the tiny, inner sparks of possibility into flames of achievement. — Golda Meir
"Our team needs more trust." "I can't trust them." "My trust has been broken."
I hear these words often in my work as a coach. The yearning for connection in these comments is strong and palpable. We know that trust is one of seven important relationship strengths of any working relationship: critical to have, difficult to define, painful to lose, challenging to engender when broken.
So what is trust? From Dictionary.com, it's the "reliance on the integrity, strength, ability, surety, of a person or thing; confidence; confident expectation of something; hope."
Reliance. Integrity. Surety. Confidence. Hope. Certainly things we want to demonstrate with others, and to expect from others in our relationships.
Paradoxically, trust, as one of my teachers once said, is first and foremost an inside job. Meaning that you can't trust others, or expect them to trust you, unless you first trust yourself.
If you're yearning for more trust in your working or personal relationships, look first to where does trust reside in you. What does "trust" mean to you? Where does confidence, hope and surety live in you? What do you trust about yourself? If you find you have broken trust with yourself in some way, how can you begin to rely upon your inherent strengths and abilities again?
As we fan even tiny sparks of surety, hope and possibility within ourselves, we can begin or renew the process of building trust with and among others.
Where does the concept of trust as an inside job show up in your life?
Before specializing as a professional coach in 2004, I spent more than a decade in leadership, management and program development for state and local government and non-profit organizations. Now I get to help leaders and teams have more clarity and ability to stand up for what's important in their work and in their organizations. Working with me, leaders and teams find more meaning and purpose, feel happier and more confident, navigate change and conflict, and work together better.
Thanks Hanna – great to hear you.
What a great post – I love that encouragement to look at ourselves – one of the most amazing questions to dive off into is “What is it about me that is allowing this to happen” (whatever “this” is). I couldn’t agree more with you. Maybe the ultimate trust for me, is to know that I’ll make it even if I screw up, or if someone else does – of course I will! I find that I don’t have to worry too much about me or anyone else and that trust does come a little easier – in myself and others.
This one really hit home. Trust has always been a difficult thing for me and I have spent much time working on building my level of trust in others but have never focused on where this originated … now that I am focusing more on building up the places “inside” where I broke trust with myself, trust in others is coming much more easily. Thanks Hanna!