“I prayed for guidance and learned to trust myself.”
These wise words feel so apt for this time. When we’re able to trust in ourselves to handle anything, it enables us to thrive through everything.
Of course, if it were easy to simply “trust ourselves” and be done with it, there’d be far fewer stressed people and whole lot more pursuing the dreams that inspire them and facing their challenges with faith, not fear.
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Over the course of recent years, I’ve had to trust myself far more than I’ve wanted to. A few years ago, based on strong assurances that my husband would be relocated back to the United States where we had lived for 11 years and our children had largely grown up (I’m an Aussie), we sent our oldest children ahead to boarding school (we have four).
But then, plot twist. My husband’s company said they wanted him to take a role in Singapore. Moving to Asia was not in my plans. But I packed up my home and set up “shop” there, intent on making the most of this unplanned chapter.
Fourteen months after uprooting our life, another plot twist. My husband was reassigned to a different role. However, this time, I had a child about to enter his senior high school year and unable to transfer curriculums yet again.
So, I found my family spread across not two, but three continents. To say this was NOT part of my “family vision” is an understatement.
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As I write this now, still to reunite my family, I’ve found myself weathering another storm. Except this one, I’m sharing with millions of others.
COVID-19 has disrupted lives of people across the globe. Many feel fearful, ungrounded and off-kilter, as though the world has tilted off its axis. Yet, as I wrote in You’ve Got This! The Life Changing Power of Trusting Yourself, when the ground beneath us feels shaky and so much is uncertain, we have to look within ourselves for the security we seek. That is, we have to trust that within us lie the resources we need to handle whatever unfolds ahead. We don’t do this one time, braver forever more. No, rather we must do it again and again—one day, one hour and sometimes, one minute at a time.
Of course, it’s only natural to feel anxious or stressed when dealing with so much uncertainty and seismic levels of disruption. I was about to do a month-long book and speaking tour across the U.S., and alas, like so many plans, it’s been canceled. So, if you’ve been feeling anxious right now, know you’re not alone. The entire world is experiencing collective vulnerability right now.
Trusting yourself is not about becoming invulnerable to fear or eradicating self-doubt. Rather, it’s reclaiming the power that we surrender to our fears and choosing each day to show up from a place of faith, rather than fear; of self-trust, rather than self-doubt.
Walking the path of faith over fear is not about religion. It’s about daring to lean into a deeper source of power that lives within us, and around us. It’s about taking the ultimate risk, placing a bet on ourselves that within us is all that’s required to meet the demands of each moment as it arises. Faith doesn’t remove our problems, but it transforms our relationship to them. In doing so, it expands our bandwidth for life.
Ralph Waldo Emerson once said, “Self-trust is the essence of heroism.” We are each walking our own hero’s journey, and each day we wake up, we have the opportunity to start anew in building the self-trust that true heroism requires. To walk our own hero’s journey, in our own way, in our time.
Day by day, choice by choice, one brave act of heroism at a time, you build self-trust each time you are braver than you want to be. You do it each time you risk falling short as you pursue what tugs at your heart. You do it each time you defy your doubts and honor your gifts. You do it each time you lay your vulnerability on the line for the sake of a noble cause. And you do it each time you look within for the light that you seek.
If ever there was a time to be the hero of our own lives, it is now.
If ever there was a time to ground ourselves in our innate “enoughness,” it is now.
If ever there was a time to listen to the whispers of our inner sage, it is now.
If ever there was a time we needed to step up to the plate in our lives, it is now.
And if ever there was a time to search inside ourselves for the certainty missing around us—grounding ourselves in “self-certainty”—it is now.
You’ve got this. I’ve got this. We’ve got this.
Decide today that you will ground yourself in faith, not fear. Then ask yourself, What would I do today if I trust that whatever happens, I can handle it?
Not only will it lighten your spirit, but it will liberate you to do more of what strengthens you and elevates others.
So breathe in faith, breathe out fear.
Breathe in faith again.
Related: 7 Brave Steps to Become Fearless
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12 Principles for Building Self-Trust
Excerpted from You’ve Got This! The Life Changing Power of Trusting Yourself Wiley publishing March 2020
1. Don’t wait for confidence.
Begin before you feel ready; life rewards action, not indecision.
2. Doubt your doubts.
When you let fear call the shots, you sell yourself short.
3. Dial up your daring.
Be bold in the vision you create for your life.
4. Embrace your fallibility.
Get off your own back and give yourself permission to be human.
5. Use your gifts.
Honor your talents and do more of what you do well.
6. Strengthen your wings.
Prioritize what empowers you to thrive under pressure.
7. Stand tall in your worth.
When you talk yourself down, you short change the world.
8. Risk vulnerability.
Lay down your armor and unleash your true strength.
9. Choose faith over fear.
Trust a higher force is conspiring for your greatest good.
10. Find your uplift.
Surround yourself with those who embolden you.
11. Surrender resistance.
Embrace uncertainty and look within for the security you seek.
12. Own your power.
Be an ambassador for the world you want to live in.
Read next: How to Become Truly Confident
Photo by Ruslan Galiullin/Shutterstock.com
Margie Warrell
You’ve Got This!, Find Your Courage, Stop Playing Safe, Train the Brave and Make Your Mark—Margie’s best-selling books reflect her mission to embolden people to live and lead more bravely. An intrepid Aussie, Margie is an internationally renowned keynote speaker who has worked and interviewed the world’s top trailblazers from Sir Richard Branson to Bill Marriott and sits on the advisory board of Forbes Business School. She’d love to connect with you at www.margiewarrell.com .
Source: Success.com