Self Trust and Everything’s a Skill

I’ve been reading the Speed of Trust. One of the concepts discussed is self trust: the trust you have with yourself.

I have never deeply pondered trust in that way, i.e. how much do I trust myself? When I make a commitment to myself, do I keep it?

I now see how some people can totally lack self trust. They make goals and rarely keep them. They start things and never finish.

On the other hand, I’ve noticed changes happening over the past 1.5 years as I’ve focused on my own monthly habits. I haven’t always succeeded, but I’ve stuck with it. It isn’t easy, but I’ve persevered. And I have been successful in adding several new positive habits.

As I’ve progressed, I’ve noticed what I orginally considered increased confidence. What I see now is I’m also gaining trust in myself to identify a goal and work hard on it. I may or may not succeed, but, more importantly, I also trust myself to synthesize and learn from the experience. And, yeah, the ability to succeed produces an even better boost. I’m getting better at succeeding, too.

I’m also thinking about another concept from Dr Cobb: everything is a skill. Everything. And each time you do the thing, you’re reinforcing it positively or negatively.

How you work out. Washing the dishes each night. Letting someone finish a sentence before you respond. Spending non-digital time before bed so you can actually sleep at night. Breathing deeply while trying to be creative. It’s all a “skill.”

The concept makes me do things much more deliberately and mindfully. For instance, my habit this month is writing 10 minutes per day. I’ve been “about to start writing again” for several months. So this month I added it to my morning routine (after reading for 15min). I missed it yesterday. I didn’t want to get a streak of misses, so this was top of mind this morning. I know each day I do this, I’m getting better at “writing each day.” Regaining trust in myself in this area of life.

Wouldn’t mind rebuilding the online water cooler we had in the nomadlife days, either. That was cool.

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