Have you ever known what you wanted to do, only to talk yourself out of it Perhaps you made a decision and then immediately began questioning it. You asked a friend what they thought. Then someone else. Perhaps you searched online, made a list of pros and cons, changed your mind, changed it back again, and somehow ended up feeling less certain than when you started.
We often imagine that people who trust themselves simply know what to do. But I don’t think self-trust is really about certainty. It’s about knowing that we can listen to ourselves, make thoughtful choices and cope with what happens next, even when we cannot know the outcome in advance.
For some people, this comes relatively naturally. For others, trusting themselves can feel extraordinarily difficult. Perhaps your decisions were frequently questioned when you were younger. Maybe expressing your needs led to criticism, conflict or rejection. Perhaps you learned to keep other people happy and became highly attuned to what everyone else needed, while gradually losing touch with what you needed yourself.
Difficult or controlling relationships can affect this too. When your perception of events has repeatedly been dismissed or challenged, it can become increasingly difficult to trust your own experience. And sometimes self-doubt grows simply because life has hurt us. We make a decision that doesn’t work out and conclude that we made the “wrong” choice. A relationship ends. A job doesn’t work out. Something we hoped for doesn’t happen.
Looking backwards, with information we didn’t have at the time, we judge the person who made the decision.
“I should have known.”
But should we?
We can only make decisions using the information, awareness and resources available to us at that moment. Self-trust isn’t believing that we’ll never make a mistake. It is believing that we don’t have to abandon ourselves when we do. That distinction matters. Because when we become afraid of making the wrong decision, we can begin trying to eliminate uncertainty altogether. And that is where overthinking often enters. We replay possibilities. Predict outcomes. Search for reassurance. Try to identify every potential problem before it happens.
For a little while, reassurance can feel soothing. Someone tells us, “Yes, I think you’re doing the right thing,” and anxiety settles. But then another thought arrives. “But what if…?” So we seek reassurance again.
The difficulty is that repeatedly looking outside ourselves for certainty can sometimes reinforce the very belief we’re trying to escape: “I can’t trust myself to know what to do.”
Rebuilding self-trust therefore doesn’t necessarily begin with making enormous, life-changing decisions. Often, it begins much smaller. Noticing what you actually want to eat rather than automatically agreeing with everyone else. Allowing yourself to say no without constructing an elaborate justification. Choosing how you’d like to spend your weekend. Pausing before asking someone else what they think and asking yourself first.
“What do I think?”
“What do I need?”
“What matters to me here?”
Those questions may sound simple. For someone who has spent years prioritising everyone else’s voice, they can feel surprisingly unfamiliar.
There is another distinction worth making here too. Self-trust isn’t the same as blindly following your intuition. We sometimes hear advice such as “trust your gut” as though every strong internal feeling contains unquestionable wisdom. But our internal responses can be influenced by many things. Fear. Past experiences. Learned beliefs. Anxiety. Protective patterns.
This doesn’t mean we should ignore our feelings. Quite the opposite. They give us important information. But we can become curious about them rather than immediately obeying or dismissing them.
“What am I noticing?”
“What might this feeling be telling me?”
“Does this feel familiar?”
“Am I responding to what is happening now, or is something from the past being activated?”
“What does the evidence tell me?”
“What matters most to me?”
This is a more compassionate kind of self-trust. Not assuming that every thought is true. Not assuming that every fear is a warning. But not automatically assuming that we’re wrong either. We listen. We reflect. We allow ourselves time. And then, sometimes, we choose.
There may still be doubt. That’s important. Because perhaps one of the biggest misconceptions about decision-making is that confidence must come first. Sometimes it doesn’t. Sometimes we take a small step while uncertainty is still sitting beside us. And then another. And through those experiences we gradually learn:
“I can handle not knowing.”
“I can make decisions.”
“I can change direction if I need to.”
“I can ask for help without handing over responsibility for my life.”
“I can be kind to myself if things don’t go as planned.”
Self-trust is built through experiences like these. Not through becoming infallible. Through discovering that we can remain on our own side. Perhaps that is the next stage of becoming.
Last month, I wrote about choosing what we want to nurture rather than trying to reinvent ourselves. But eventually there comes a moment when nurturing something requires action. A boundary needs to be spoken. A conversation needs to happen. An opportunity needs to be explored. Something needs to be released. Or perhaps we simply need to admit to ourselves what we already know.
We may never have complete certainty. Life rarely offers it. But perhaps we don’t need it. Perhaps the question isn’t: “How can I know that this is definitely the right decision?”
Perhaps it is: “Can I trust myself to meet whatever comes next?”
And maybe that is where genuine self-trust begins. Not knowing everything. Not controlling everything. Not getting everything right. But listening to yourself. Taking yourself seriously. Allowing yourself to learn. And knowing that whatever happens, you don’t have to turn against yourself.
If self-doubt, overthinking or difficult past experiences have made it hard to trust yourself, counselling can provide a supportive space to explore where those patterns began and how they continue to affect you today. Together, we can work towards strengthening your connection with yourself, your needs and your own inner voice.
You don’t need to see the whole path. Sometimes you only need enough trust to take the next step.
With love and renewal,
Laura
