262. Your year for trusting yourself

me as well. So I just want to start by expressing my gratitude and having a little quick chat about what we have done. The biggest thing for me this year was of course announcing my book, announcing that I wrote a book basically based on this podcast called Person in Progress. And it does not pass me by a single day that there would be no way in this world that I would have had the opportunity to write that book without you guys, without the listeners and the

support that you have given me. And this year, so much of twenty twenty four was focused on writing that book, making it the best possible, most scientific, most researched, but also personal, vulnerable story that I could make it. And there were so many like long nights, you know, up to one two am, waking up at eight am the following morning, working the whole day to write this book

and make it good. And it was such an obsessive passion project for me that there is no way that it couldn't not define this year, and then next year is probably going to be defined by the fact that it's going to be released. It comes out in April twenty twenty five, and I feel like that's just going to be an equally surreal moment. But for now, I am just planning my feet where I am and reminiscing

on what an insane journey that was. Honestly, I was speaking to like my family about this today and I was like, I can't believe I wrote almost one hundred thousand words this year, plus all the other writing that I did for the podcast, But it was just such a mammoth exercise, like it's you know, there was just so many opportunities in this life where we really get to test ourselves and see how much we are capable of and how hard we can work, and so, you know,

often we don't actually take those opportunities, like when was the last time you really tested yourself and gave yourself a real massive thing to work towards, and that was like something that I did this year, so I'm very very proud of that. I'm very very grateful for the opportunity. Another insane, crazy, beautiful thing we did this year was we held our first two meetups, our first two friendship

meetups for the podcast. We had one in July in Sydney, which was the inur gural meetup, and it just went so well, So if you attended, thank you for being my guinea pigs. But I also feel like we all had such an amazing time. And then we held our second one in October. October, yeah, October, in Melbourne, and that was just equally fulfilling. And actually that was where I announced the book for the first time, so the people in that room, all seventy five of them, were

the first ones to hear about it. My heart was so full after each of those experiences. So many hours, and I would say anxiety and stress went into creating them because I wanted it to be like value for money, but I also wanted to make sure that it was fun and that people really wanted to be there and

got something out of it. And as soon as I stepped into that room and you guys all started coming, I was like, wow, like this community is just like literally speechless to even trying to explain the memory, like just beautiful, beyond beautiful, intelligent, kind, generous. Every single person who came to those meetups was like the most impressive person, the most interesting person, the most creative person I had

ever met. And that was just such a beautiful thing to be able to witness and to be able to bring everyone together. So if you were at one of those two meetups, thank you so much for coming along, even when there wasn't much like prior information about it. You really were the test subjects. But that means that next year we will be doing ten of those meetups,

not just in Australia but across the world. We're going to be starting in Canberra, We're going to do another one in Sydney, another one in Melbourne, We're going to do one in Queensland, and then we're heading over to the UK and to Europe and also to the US. Hopefully we can bring it to more places later on in the year, but we're going slow, we're taking baby steps with this, but I'm just so excited for that, and I'm so excited for what twenty twenty five is

going to bring. So with all of my op bewhelming gratitude aside, I want to introduce you to our theme for twenty twenty five, so long term listeners of the podcast will know that each year, I'd like to choose a theme, a theme for the year, a theme, an attitude basically for what we're going to bring into twenty twenty five. So twenty twenty four it was our year for taking risks, and twenty twenty five it is our

year for fully trusting ourselves. Now, the opposite of anxiety is trust, and so what this theme really means for me this year is allowing ourselves to be scared, allowing ourselves to be uncomfortable, allowing ourselves to feel anxiety about the future, about our circumstances, and trusting ourselves anyway, almost being delusional, and how much we trust ourselves and our path. That is an amazing power to have, and we're going

to talk about it more in just a second. But to explain the reason firstly as to why I like to choose a theme instead of a goal or a New Year's resolution, it's because a theme to me applies to everything. So it's a mindset, it's an attitude, it's an approach. It's a lens through which you can see your whole life, not just one goal at a time.

So instead of having to set, you know, a goal for every area of my life, a professional goal, a relationship goal, a financial goal, a personal goal, a health goal, whatever it is. Instead you prioritize one larger idea that influences all of these elements at once, and by doing so, you don't have to be a stretch thin trying to

accomplish five to ten individual things. You know all of your attention is going to be focused on onligning your behavior with the theme of trusting yourself, going after what you want, deciding what is and what isn't for you, and knowing that you can pursue that even when it

scares you. I think that's a really really powerful mindset to have, and this idea works much better for me, this perspective, this method, especially since our brains have such finite cognitive resources and we really struggle with attention and

sometimes with motivation. So instead, when I say I am someone who trusts myself, or I say I'm someone who takes risks or whatever your theme is for the year, it stretches a lot wider, it reaches new areas, and I really do find that the transformation in my life is deeper. So yes, that is my basic premise or explanation for this way of going about things, and why

this is how I approach the new year. I think obviously this is also a time when we can really galvanize ourselves around something new and a fresh, purposeful philosophy on life because of the emotional and mental significance of

new beginnings, especially for our brains. And there is this theory in psychology called the fresh start effect, which basically explains how when you think about it, rather arbitrary landmarks like a new year or a birthday or a new job, a new season, it really motivates us to break away from past habits because it gives the impression of a blank slate. And yes, the new year is really just a one day, you know, It's just a day, and another day and another day. It's just we have put

these you know, human human ideas around time passing. But that is significant enough. And a twenty fifteen study that really examined this and examined this across five laboratory experiments, and it found consistently that when humans are given this idea of a new beginning or a new time period, it really increases our intentions to pursue our goals and ultimately our success in achieving them. So this is your time, This is when to start, This is when to take

up a new theme. So, without further ado, let's talk about why this year is going to be your year for fully trusting yourself. Firstly, let's start off by really examining what self trust looks like. Self trust is firstly, not having all the answers. Self trust is not arrogance or ego. It is instead a deep belief in your ability to encounter problems and get through them, but also an equally deep belief that you know what your life

should look like. You know what you want from your life, and you are so sure of it that you are willing to go after it despite what other people might believe, despite the naysayers. Essentially, self trust to me is the opposite of self doubt. You know where self doubt call you a fraud and might say you're not capable of this, You're not ready you can't possibly handle this. Self trust is something even greater than confidence. It's steadiness, it's self assurance.

You can look at a challenge, say, for example, an uncertain future which a lot of us in our twenties are dealing with, or a new job or a big move, and you can confidently say, I actually don't know how this is going to work out, but I trust the future version of myself to do what's best and to handle it. Therefore, that allows you to take the leap.

I think there's this incredible article by Psychology Today that explains the roots of self trust, and they just put it so well, and what they basically explain is that when we look at examples of people who are self trusting, we find that they have clarity and confidence in their choices. They are healthily depend on other peoples while other people whilst also independent, so they're not overly dependent on other people,

but they're also not hyperindependent. They speak with authority that comes from a very deep place, but is not arrogant. They are good observers, and they have also, and this is critical, cultivated the ability to learn from their experiences, both the successes and failures. And I think we can acknowledge why that's so important. When we don't have self trust, we feel very much pulled by other people's opinions and judgments, or we feel very much dictated by failure, or we

rely too heavily on external validation. So what that means is that what someone else thinks about me or thinks is right for me must be the truth because my

internal validation system is damaged or it's left me. So I see this a lot, actually, especially amongst those of us in our twenties, because given our aid, which I do feel like, we sometimes believe that we don't have full authority over our lives because we're so young and we're just getting started, and also we're so confused, so we're looking for someone to say, actually, no, you're wrong, let me show you how to do it. And we're like, thank god, thank gosh, someone's going to tell me what

to do. And one way this manifests is when you have to make a really important decision, and you may ask every single person in your life what they think, what do you think? Should I do this, Should I not do this? Should I go? Should I stay? Please give me the answers, And yet you are still confused, or you still feel like despite all this additional information that's coming from people's opinions, you still can't act because at the end of the day, a decision is yours

to make. Even if other people are saying you have to do this, you should do this, this is what I think is best for you, you are still the one who makes the decision, and you are still the one that will have to carry the burden, the potential burden of that being the wrong decision. So it's not the decision that you fear. You fear change, and you fear not being able to handle any unexpected consequences of

your choices. I also see it when we don't want to step out of our comfort zone because we are scared of not being able to manage it alone. I honestly believe that a lack of self trust is why so many of us stay in relationships, and that includes friendships that aren't fulfilling, because we don't think that we can trust ourselves to be happy alone. Think about you know relationships in your life currently, Why you know that

the relationship isn't actually fulfilling. It's not a fun relationship, It drains your energy, you feel like you let out a huge sigh of relief every time the hangout ends, or you feel anxious every time you see them. But we hold onto those relationships because we don't trust ourselves to be alone. We don't trust our selves to handle the emotions of having to let the relationship go. It all comes down to this sense of self doubt. Who

am I without other people dictating my character? A lack of self trust is also why we don't take risks like pursuing our passion, even if it's a side project or solo traveling, because we don't feel like we can trust ourselves to figure things out that we don't yet know and be adaptable. So when it comes down to it, we can see that this actually filters into every element of our lives, and it might be why it might be at the route actually of a lot of our indecisiveness,

our stagnation, our fear. Think about just for a second, how many situations come up for us nearly every day in our twenties and beyond really that require a baseline of self trust to accomplish. And I mean give you

a little list here. Choosing a major at university or college or a career asking for a promotion, setting boundaries, standing up for yourself, making big purchases or saving or investing, trusting that you know what's best for your body and your health, making risky decisions, even deciding what's worth your energy.

That or all of those decisions require you to be able to look in the mirror and say, hey, you might not know all the answers, but I trust that you're going to figure it out, so do what feels best. I trust you. Fomo is another one actually that just came to the top of my mind just then. Fomo

comes into this big time. If you don't have self trust, you may be more easily convinced that you have to be where everyone else is doing what they are, even when that might not suit you, because you don't feel confident or safe in your own choices or your own company. So we say self trust, and we think it's a small thing, but it really does touch our lives in

a much deeper way. And there's actually a theory in psychology called trust theory, which says that trusting ourselves is what allows us to trust others, our friends, our family, our colleagues, and that is a prerequisite for so many other things trust. I don't know. I really don't know why it doesn't get more attention. It's so important to

be a well functioning human. And a really great study that talks about this was published in twenty twelve from Huntington University in the US, and it talks about the correlation between self esteem, loneliness, and self trust, and they found that when you are low on self trust, you also experience loneliness more intensely, your self esteem is lower, and you feel more anxious about your relationships. This was totally me, maybe like six or seven years back. I

was in the pit of this. I had absolutely no trusted myself. I was so doubtful of every single thing I did, and I kind of approached relationships friendships in particular kind of like a little injured bird, being like, please like me, and if you don't like me, don't worry, I'll change for you. Like I have no strong self concept because I don't know who I am and I

don't trust myself to figure it out. So I was very like bendable and easily manipulated by friendships because I really did not believe that I knew what was best for me, and I did not believe that I could feel like I was okay without someone else telling me that I was okay. So there's a little personal story

for you. However, you know, if our theme this year is to reverse our lack of self trust, we probably you know, you firstly really need to know what damage is it in the first place, and then how to really you know, undo those interactions, those emotional interactions, the emotional trauma that has caused you to really have a lot of self doubt. So I'm going to take a quick pause, and then when we return, I want to talk about the roots about lack of self trust and

how to rebuild it after this shortbreak. So, the theory with self trust goes that we are all born with an internal compass, and this internal emotional compass is really what allows us to direct our life by following our north. And our north is something that really develops as children and then into our teenage years, and it's basically our purpose,

what we want from life, our values, our truth. Along the way, though, the compass is really thrown off by things like excessive criticism from family, from friends, from people in general, overbearing parental pressure as well, especially you know when our parents don't allow us to be individuals, and they keep us emotionally and physically dependent on them by making all our choices for us or shaming us for

doing something counter to what they want. Self trust is also damaged by internal patterns like people pleasing a fear of failure perfectionism, essentially meaning that we don't really feel like we can meet our own standards, or that letting ourselves be in control of our lives could mean that we would make major mistakes. I also want to talk about the influence of past relationship betrayal and you know, separately ignoring our intuition, and how those two sometimes come together.

So past relationship trauma and betrayal can significantly harm our sense of self trust because these experiences often disrupt our ability to accurately interpret and rely on our judgments and instincts. You know, gas lighting is a big component of this.

But when someone we trusted deceives or hurts us, it creates a real deep sense of confusion and self blame, and it leads us to really question our ability to discern red flags, to make safe choices, to protect ourselves emotionally, big caveat here, None of this is actually our fault, literally not a single part, but this external erosion of trust in others makes us believe that it is. It makes us very hypervigilant, It makes us doubtful of our

own perceptions. You know. It's honestly, one of the craziest things to me in my mind is that love is such a beautiful thing that when it is used cruelly and when it is turned sour, how much it can hurt someone. And that is really what betrayal does. And it doesn't just hurt our heart, it hurts our entire perception of self, and that betrayal often triggers feelings of shame, worthlessness, inadequacy, and that further distances us from the confidence we need

to trust our own decisions. Over time as well, repeated relational trauma can really embed within us a belief that we are incapable of navigating relationships effectively, and that perpetuates the cycle of self doubt and a fear of vulnerability as well. So, if you're really struggling to trust yourself, sometimes the origin of that is really in a past relationship where of course you were made to feel like you know, of course I can't trust myself because look

at how this turned out. This person has just treated me so poorly that I have no sense of self anymore. It's a really big contributor. Ignoring our intuition is another component of this. And that's not necessarily ignoring our intuition in a relationship, but in everyday situations that also a roade self trust. I read this really beautiful quote. Intuition is our birthright as humans. It comes with our DNA,

it comes with our blueprint. And a twenty sixteen study really showed that, and it showed that when you and I have got instincts about something, it's actually because because our brains are processing a lot more information subconsciously than we can think about consciously. So when, for example, you have a gut feeling you know, you meet someone, you're like, I don't think you're a nice person. I think you're a bad egg. Or you're in this situation, you get

that sudden feeling of like I shouldn't be here. I shouldn't be here, something about this is wrong. I need to go. That is something that oftentimes you really should trust. However, when you continuously ignore that intuition, you tell your brain that what it's doing isn't useful, and how you perceive the world is wrong. Anxiety also comes into play here. Obviously, anxiety is the opposite of trust, and so anxiety really messes with our intuition. It says, Wit, you should be

scared right now. You should be scared right now, and you know, the more rational part of your brain is like, there's nothing to be scared of. I trust myself, like this is so fine, but your brain's like no, no, no, be anxious, be anxious, be anxious. It's messing with your intuition. Anxiety opposite of self trust. Intuition huge important part of self trust. So over time this can lead to self doubt, second guessing, and an inability to really confidently make decisions.

So psychologically, this disconnection fosters a lot of confusion and we become less attuned to our instincts but also our needs, so repeatedly silencing our intuition. It can also diminish our self efficacy, and that is our belief in our ability to handle challenges or to create the outcome that we want,

and that's really critical for personal growth and resilience. You need self efficacy if you want to do anything, if you want to run a marathon, if you want to finish a really huge personal project, anything any change in your lifestyle, you actually have to believe that you are able to do something and able to achieve what you set your mind to. But if you lack self trust, of course you're not going to be able to believe that.

And if your intuition is off, if you keep ignoring the signs that you should be doing something, that this is your calling or that you can do it, or ignoring your intuition saying go this way, go that way, all of this is really really connected. I hope that's been persuasive for you, but and I hope you understand

that relationship better now. If you are struggling with self trust, I really think that it's probably something that has been diminished slowly over time until you are at a point now where instinct, intuition, confidence, self efficacy, they have all been replaced with doubt. So that being said, going into twenty twenty five, how can we reverse some of these processes and really reclaim our intuition and our self assurance.

If this is the year for trusting yourself, I think that firstly, you really are going to have to prove it to yourself, prove that you can, and that's going to require some experimentation, some trial and error, and pushing yourself into a place of discomfort, not into a place of danger, but into a place where you can truly grow. I really believe this self trust is actually a skill. It's a muscle that can be built with practice and commitment to almost a routine. And the routine I'm talking

about is an emotional routine, is a psychological routine. It involves taking chances that feel big and important and showing yourself that, like the outcome that you want is what will come from this. So how do I want you to practice proving to yourself that you can trust yourself? I want you to start saying yes to things that you might not quite feel ready to do instead of waiting for the perfect time, because the perfect time is

a fallacy. It never actually comes. And what I still want you to see is, you know, win or fail, win or lose, success or failure, whatever it is, you are still going to be okay. You will still survive every single time, even if things aren't perfect. So let me give you some examples of how we can practice this. In twenty twenty five. How we can make self trust part of our routine, so a big one and every single one of us can do this is to go to things alone, even if you're scared, or even if

it could be a disaster. So you get invited to a party, go by yourself. You really want to go to an event you don't know anyone, go by yourself. There's a movie that no one else wants to see with you, go by yourself. Go out for dinner by yourself. There's a lot of fear around that sometimes, especially if you're someone who is quite socially anxious, like myself, there's a lot of fear. Am I going to be able to handle this? What if someone looks at me the

wrong way? What if someone judges me? Doesn't matter? You trust yourself. This is your year for trusting yourself, and someone who trusts themselves would be okay with going into that situation not knowing what other people are thinking, not knowing how it's going to work out, knowing that they're still going to have fun and get what they want out of it by being alone. Another way that you can really make self trust part of your routine is to confront a big fear that you have this year.

It could be of public speaking, of traveling alone, going on a blind date, of flying, of being embarrassed, of going to the gym. What is the fear that you have in your mind right now? Just think about it really quickly. That is holding you back. So you really don't know how you react and how brave and strong you can be until you face a fear and you

see how your reaction will surprise you. The anxiety that we feel in regards to a big fear is normally actually anticipation, and then when you get there, when you get into the moment of your fear, yes it might be uncomfortable, yes it might not go your way, but actually a lot of our anxiety tends to fade and the adrenaline takes over and you get to see yourself adapt. You get to see yourself in all of your glory,

face a fear and come out of it. And what that really requires is also leaving room for the mess of trusting yourself. Now, this is really this is a really important component. And I have to thank an article from Well and Good for this, and they interviewed a really amazing author called Liz Moody who wrote the book One Hundred Ways to Change Your Life. Really good book, also amazing. It's on like probably one of my top ten books. And she made this incredible point about self trust.

She said, doing what you think is right for you isn't always going to be a clean process. In learning to trust yourself, you will make painful mistakes. You will have to give up on things, you will have to let things go. But as you learn disappointing people, closing certain chapters of your life, making mistakes, you realize that those are all important parts of trusting yourself. And sometimes that might feel like a really big loss to bear. Right.

Sometimes you might be like, ah, I really don't have it in me right now to experience failure or to lose a friendship or to stand up for myself. That's a totally normal reaction. But you will never build self trust if you don't just try, step by step, maybe steps at a time, to encounter situations where you don't know how things are going to go, where there is

fear there and choose trust over doubt. The more risks you take in service of trusting yourself, the more reinforcement you'll get as well, and the more that you'll realize that this is an exercise that it's worthwhile. So even when the decisions don't always work out, it's still actually a really valuable exercise. It's basically building an internal sense of like okayness, like this is going to be fine.

And this really brings me to my next point, which is intuition, which is too really examine when your intuition is that instinct and when it is anxiety, when is it actually not intuition but it's just fear. So I think that a really great way to think about intuition is that intuition isn't just something that is in us to avoid things. It's not just an avoidance technique. Intuition

is also something that guides us to abundance. So all of us have this intuition somewherey on us that we should be doing something, that there is something calling us, that there is a purpose that we have, that we should be volunteering more, we should be creating more, we should be writing more, we should be saying yes to more things. Intuition comes in that form as well. It's guiding you to something that's important for who you are.

Don't ignore it, don't listen to the anxious thought that's giving you a reason to doubt your positive intuition, And with your negative intuition, test and see what times is that just anxiety, and what times is it actually it got instinct? When could I have pushed forward a little bit and really got to the bottom of whether this was my intuition telling me what to do or whether

it was just fear. That's a really important challenge, and I would also challenge you to start reconsidering your need for the approval of others or the validation of your choices.

So if you have a positive intuition or a positive got instinct towards a decision telling you to do something, telling you to make a big change, to move somewhere, to create something, to dump someone, whatever it is, I don't think that you need others to tell you that you're right, because chances are that if you have that feeling, you already know that this is what you should be doing.

And sometimes we bury ourselves again in getting as many of the opinions of others and the advice from others. We do that because we don't want to make a decision. But if you're gout instinct to saying this is something that's really calling me. You've got to do it. Also, these people who give you their advice, right, they're not the ones who have to encounter the decision right. They don't actually have to pull the trigger the way that you do. They also probably aren't as invested in this

as you are. They probably don't know you as well as you know yourself. They might believe they know what's best for you, but you actually know what's best for you.

That's part of self trust. So what that involves is, yes, making decisions without getting a million pieces of advice from everyone from your best friend to your neighbor to some stranger, like, just do what feels best for you, but also just slowly testing that by wearing outfits without you know, asking if your friends like them, buying the things that you want to buy without asking someone else whether it looks cute, making career choices without first needing to ask everyone whether

it's a good idea. Obviously, we all love feedback, but when you're going after excessive feedback, it can also be a form of avoidance. Avoidance is not self trust, and that is our year. Our year is for self trust.

So twenty twenty five In summary, your theme is your year for trusting yourself, and what that really means is releasing the need for external validation, tapping into your positive intuition that is telling you this is where you need to be, This is where you need to go, knowing that you can survive being uncomfortable, knowing that you can survive being uncertain and just seriously living for you. It's a new year, it's a blank page, it's a fresh start.

And I know that's rather arbitrary, but sometimes we need the arbitrary idea of a new chapter to really commit to a new mindset and unnune lifestyle. And I hope that this is one that really resonates with you. If your year for fully trusting yourself is not the theme that suits you, I really also employ you to come up with your own. It could be your year for self discipline. It could be your year for taking risks if that wasn't the one that you took on last year.

It could be your year for gratitude. It could be your ye for saying yes. It could be your year for eliminating people pleasing. What is your theme and how does it touch every area of your life? Write it on a piece of paper, Write it real big, Have it on your desk, have it in your car, have it at your place of work, anywhere on your mirror so that you can fully embrace how a theme will touch every single part of your year. Thank you so much for listening, and thank you so much for your

support in twenty twenty four. Twenty twenty five is about to be a wild year. I can't wait to meet more of you, speak to you, hear your journeys. I just that's like my favorite part about this. You guys just inspire me so much, So I can't wait for more of that. I can't wait for you guys to read my book, can't wait for more episodes. And also next episode, I have a big surprise, huge surprise. So if you have made it this far, I really want you to tune in because it's it's just like the

craziest thing of ever. As always, if you enjoyed this episode, make sure that you are following along on Spotify or Apple podcasts, wherever you are listening. It's a new year, so maybe think about leaving us a five star review so more people can find us in twenty twenty five. Of course, only if you feel cool to do so, but we really do appreciate it. Share this episode on Instagram, Share it with your friends, share it with your partner, Share it with someone else who you think really needs

to begin trusting themselves, whoever that may be. And until next time, stay safe, be kind, be gentle with yourself, and we will talk very very soon. Happy New Year,