There is something we don’t talk about enough when we talk about confidence. Sometimes, the problem isn’t that you don’t believe in yourself. It’s that you don’t trust yourself. You’ve promised yourself you would exercise. You promised yourself you would journal every day, that you would leave that relationship or apply for that job.You promised yourself you would rest more and speak up. And then life happened. There was always something that came up. Maybe other people needed you; you ran out of time. Maybe you were waiting for motivation or were afraid you would make the wrong decision. Maybe you were trying to be perfect. And slowly, those promises disappeared. So many of those promises that we give to ourselves every single day disappear. And every single one of those broken promises teaches your brain that maybe what you say and what you tell yourself is actually not true. And that starts eroding your own confidence. Because if I don’t believe in what I’m saying, how can I be confident? If I’m constantly proving to myself that I’m not even able to hold promises to myself, how can I rely on myself? The good news is that trust can be rebuilt. And it doesn’t happen through more thinking. The trust is built through evidence. The same way that we trust other people because they’re consistent. They do what they promise us to do. The same way, we need to build trust with ourselves. We trust ourselves because we do what we promise ourselves to do. Here is how you can start trusting yourself again: Start incredibly small When we want to change our lives, we often make the promise too big. We want to completely reinvent ourselves. We decide we’re going to exercise every day, journal every morning, meditate for thirty minutes, eat perfectly, read more, sleep better and finally become the person we’ve been imagining. And then we wonder why we don’t stick with it. But the idea right now here is not for you to completely reinvent your life with this one promise that you make to yourself. You need to make it so simple, so convenient, so easy for you that it will be impossible to break it. Because consistency is more important than intensity. Consistency is more important than doing something big, at least at this first step. Through that action, through that consistency, your self-respect will grow. Your confidence will grow. Your trust will grow. Every kept promise will become an evidence for you. And you will start building up the momentum that always beats the motivation or discipline. Make Yourself that One Tiny Promise Notice where you are constantly proving to yourself that you cannot rely on yourself. Then choose one promise that is manageable and sustainable. Something that you’ll be able to easily achieve absolutely every single day. If you are having doubts, if it’s too impressive, then downsize. Go to the smallest possible thing that you will do. * Maybe you’ll drink a glass of water more. * Maybe you’ll read one page every day. * Maybe you’ll stretch for two minutes at home. * Maybe you’ll write one sentence every single day. * Maybe you’ll step outside on the balcony for five minutes. It doesn’t matter what it is. As long as you’re sticking and proving to yourself, to your brain, to your body and to yourself that you can stick with it and that you can rely on yourself, that you can trust yourself. Do it for one week. Then two. Notice what is changing. Once you see that this is something that you’re consistently doing, then it’s time to make it bigger. Then it’s time to move forward. Build your inner best friend There is another part of this that matters. You’re not just building a habit. You’re building a relationship with yourself. What you’re doing with all of this, you’re basically building your inner best friend. You’re treating yourself like you would treat someone else whom you deeply love. * Would you constantly disappoint other people? * Would you expect perfection from other people? * Would you constantly criticize other people? You wouldn’t. You would encourage them. You would consistently do your best to show up for them. You would expect them to make mistakes and it would be okay. So I want you to build that relationship with yourself as well. I want you to encourage yourself. I want you to be successful and to be successful, meaning you having your own back. Because then you trust yourself. Then you can be confident in that. And then you can create a big change in your life that you want. Every big change starts with something tiny, tiny, tiny. One promise Maybe confidence isn’t something you need to find. Maybe it’s something you build. One action. One kept promise. One piece of evidence at a time. So what I want to leave with you as the end message is this: Confidence comes from trust. Trust is what follows action, what follows the proof. And that action starts with one tiny intention, one tiny promise. So today, make yourself one. Make it small. Make it easy. And keep it. Then do it again tomorrow. And again. Until, little by little, you become someone you know you can count on. Your confidence won’t come from telling yourself that you can trust yourself. It will come from proving it. Love, Anja Get full access to Project: Fall in Love with Life Again at fallinlovewithlifeagain.substack.com/subscribe
