The Tribune

By MICHELLE MILLER

According to Ralph Waldo Emerson, self-trust is the secret of success. If this is true, it follows then that the lack of success in our personal and or professional lives is really a matter of our trust in ourselves, which is an area seldom discussed. Consequently, the level of trust we experience in life, be it at work or in society as a whole, has more to do with a lack self-trust, as opposed to a generic lack of trust.

It takes trust to get trust. If you do not trust yourself, can you really trust anyone else? The challenge here is most people don’t know whether or not they trust themselves, but are sure that they can’t trust others.

Trust is the cornerstone of life itself. In one way or another, everything has to do with a degree of trust. In our daily life, we are operating more on the currency of trust than anything else. Interestingly, although trust is essential to our daily function, an overwhelming number of people live in a state of distrust. Most of which tends to be directed towards those that hold leadership positions; however, the truth is, the seed of distrust always grows from within.

In other words, your lack of trust in yourself often engenders a lack trust in others. This doesn’t mean that you may not have a good reason to distrust others, particularly those in authority. However, you must be willing to take the log out of your own eye before pointing at what may be a speck in someone else’s.

Self-trust has several definitions: self-confidence, self-reliance, and having faith oneself. Deeper still, I believe that the core of self-trust speaks to your awareness of who you are and your sense of identity. It’s about self-knowledge, self-love, and self-understanding; knowing what makes you unique, enables you to stand in your own shoes. Trust for self then becomes natural.

The fact is, people don’t really trust themselves simply because they don’t know themselves. It’s hard to trust a self that you have failed to develop an honest relationship with. This is where the work really begins. Without trust in self, any seeming measure of success is only an illusion.

To answer the question of how much you really trust yourself, where would you begin? Best place to begin is at the beginning. Everything starts with you. You are the single common denominator in your life and your results reflect all that you’ve been thinking and doing or all that you have chosen not to think or do.

The good news is, life is not static and at any point you can change course or shift direction. If you desire a more meaningful life, self-trust is a must. Be willing to give yourself time to know who you are. Unravel your core values. Being a person who keeps their word is another active ingredient in building self-trust. Often times we only say what we think people want to hear. What we may not realize that our words have power and when we callously toss them around, we do irreparable damage to the crust of our trust. Learn to honour your words.

In essence, Trust is about being trustworthy. You cannot be worthy of trust if you are dishonest in your dealings. Remember, you are always at the centre point of all that you do. Even when you think, nobody is watching you bear in mind that you are always watching yourself. Although you may think you are supposedly ‘getting away’ with something, you cannot lie to yourself; it only diminishes trust in yourself. Bob Marley said it best: “You’re running and running away, but you can’t run away from yourself.”

This is where the rubber meets the road - most people are not willing to work on themselves. Life in the simplest term is about becoming a better person, a better leader and this is really a matter of trust. In being trustworthy, you elevate the value of your personal equity.

Trust is one of my personal core values. I know for sure that my trustworthiness is the single potent ingredient that has enabled me to lift my life from the lowest valley to the highest mountain and still climb higher. I learned early on that I must trust myself with a little before I can be trusted with a lot.

Leader to leader, make today the day that you assess the degree to which you trust yourself. Clarify your sense of reliability, credibility, empathy and integrity. If your trust meter is yielding low ratings then you owe it to yourself to set a goal to cultivate a cornerstone of trust within yourself.

Make today the day that you find the courage to lead the way. Now is the time to live the life that you love.

• Michelle M. Miller is a certified Life-Coach, Leadership Expert, and Host of the Radio program – Men & The e-Factor. Questions or comments can be sent to email coaching242@yahoo.com or telephone 429-6770 or visit www.leader2leaderacademy.com or snail mail to P.O. Box CB-13060.