Have you ever felt stuck? The feeling tends to start with mild frustration which tumbles into helplessness.
You begin to think “this is just how it is and it’s how it’s going to be.”
A couple of months ago, I was feeling this way much of the time. I had left my job which I lacked little fulfillment in and had no plan B. The natural course of action was to start applying for different jobs. But as I began doing so, I was struck by levels of anxiety I’d never experienced previously. Maybe I was burnt out, but I had little ability to flicker through applications and instead was prone to chaotic mood swings.
I sobbed uncontrollably, and when the tears subsided, it turned into a blind rage. I longed for an environment where I felt secure, happy, and purpose-driven. I wanted a “dream” job but I didn’t know where to look. All the job postings I saw painted a bleak reality, and I always felt like I had to fake it to some extent.
And so with the support of my partner, I decided it was easier if I started a business. Mostly because I had full autonomy and control over it.
So I began building. But amidst building this, I realized how little I trusted myself. And it’s been holding me back, massively. Here’s why:
Quieting my Own Voice
They always tell you if you want to succeed, retrace the steps of someone who has. What they failed to mention is that every scenario is a little different, and you can read twenty books on great leaders, but if you lack the trust in yourself to execute, you’re doomed.
For the first couple of months, I shut up and listened to my advisor. And though the advice was much needed in the beginning, I became reliant on it. I would do one thing and check in with them as if I worked for them, instead of myself. It was a mere habit I developed from years of working for someone else.
I have nothing against having a job and having a boss. In fact, I will admit I have zero problems with working for someone else if I genuinely love the work and the environment. Reflecting back, I almost always worked harder because there was that accountability and slight people-pleasing tendency in place.
When I transitioned to working for myself, it was like “Why would I want to pat myself on the back?”
I didn’t place much value on my own thoughts and so I let my business become an extension of someone else’s mind.
As a result, the majority of the time I was demotivated. I didn’t actually want to do the work that was required of building a startup.
Shutting Myself Out by Autopiloting Everything
From the get-go, I knew I didn’t want to have the type of business where I was a slave to it. Thus, I tried to hire someone right away to do the work I really despised and tried to use automation tools to do the bulk of the email outreach work.
I didn’t even want to look at it, I just wanted to press a button to get results. Obviously, it didn’t work. In fact, I couldn’t even touch my email for a month because my first domain went to spam.
I realized that in order to get traction in the beginning, the solution was not to use the little resources I had to hire someone for cheap to do a complete butcher of the task—but to get my own hands dirty for a while.
Do you know what happens when you get your hands dirty? You learn. You learn a whole lot.
I wouldn’t know how to segment my niche audience if I didn’t manually go through the websites and did the research myself.
And yes, it’s tedious work. But this type of hands-on work translates to knowledge that can’t be found in a blog post.
Being Proactive about my Own Obstacles
Trust takes time to build, and funnily enough, building a trusting relationship with yourself can be one of the most challenging things you ever do.
We’re hard on ourselves because we’ve made mistakes in the past or we don’t have the accolades like someone else. Therefore, we turn to people we trust to solve our problems (that’s why so many people get coaches).
Here’s the truth. No one has the correct answer to your obstacles. Instead of giving away your trust to someone else, return some of that back to yourself.
Give yourself permission to try, to work off intuition, and to make decisions for yourself that not everyone might agree with.
People around you will try to consult you and tell you this or that is the right way to do it, but in reality, only you hold the key. That door will always remain locked until you learn how to trust yourself.
Don’t wait for the perfect time (because it’ll never come), and rip off the band-aid and do it. If it doesn’t work out at least you can take responsibility for your own actions. And over time, you will develop more resilience and confidence.
Last Thoughts
If you’ve been struggling to trust yourself for a long time, all it starts with like any habit is baby steps.
Start small, like voicing your input in a social environment, and work yourself up to make larger decisions and initiatives.
The point is not perfection in your decision-making, but to increase the frequency of doing so. Execution is what moves the needle forward, and this is something that people who lack trust in themselves struggle with most of their lives.
That’s the reason why that project you wanted to work on is stalled or you haven’t planned that vacation you were dreaming about two years ago.
If you want to become the type of person that makes bold moves, it all begins with trusting yourself.
Secret Prose 
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