Self-trust is a critical element to becoming the CEO of your life.

The truth is we’re all just shooting from the hip and making things up as we go along…

…but we often don’t trust ourselves to follow our gut, pivot and move forward from failure, and do things our way because we’re so busy second-guessing ourselves because we think life or business should be done the way we see other people doing it.

In this episode, I share 5 powerful tips to develop self-trust so you can move forward with confidence.

I’ll see you inside! xo, Janeen

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Want to connect? janeenalley.com/breakthrough

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Transcript:

[00:00:00] Janeen: Well, Hey there, you guys welcome back to another episode of the podcast. I am Janeen Alley. You are listening to becoming the CEO of your life today. And today’s episode has everything to do with cultivating self trust and empowering your journey from within yourself. So if you are brand new to the podcast, welcome, I’m so grateful that you are here today.

[00:00:26] So self trust I think is crucial for women for multiple reasons, especially if you’re running a business. It’s also crucial, of course, if you’re just living your life, and I’m going to give some personal and business examples today. But what we ultimately do when we have not developed self trust is we’re subconsciously looking around externally, outside ourselves, and we’re seeing and comparing what other people are doing to what we’re doing, thinking that what they’re doing and the way that they’re doing it is better than the [00:01:00] way that we are doing things.

[00:01:02] And we’re telling ourselves it should be done this way. But here’s the truth about life and business and everything is we are just all making things up as we go along. That is the truth. That is the truth for me and my life and my business. And I’ve heard this so many times from other entrepreneurs. So let me just tell you this, there isn’t a right way to do things. We need to be able to think about how we can infuse our way into the way that we’re doing something. However it works for us. Even if we’re doing someone else’s exact process. I have hired many coaches that have an exact way of doing something, whether it’s marketing, whether it’s creating a course, whatever it is, I have hired people to tell me exactly how to do things.

[00:01:50] And at the end of the day, I appreciate the framework, but what I’ve learned is how to tweak the process to make it mine. Think this is tricky for us in life in general, [00:02:00] but particularly as an entrepreneur. I know, I know for myself, this is an area of my life that I’ve really worked very hard on developing self trust because I had no idea how to run a business. And I think parenting is sometimes similar to this, but fortunately, most of the time babies come one at a time, right?

[00:02:19] And if you’re, if your experience is having twins or triplets, even, or even more kids than that, you kind of figure out a process that works for you in that experience, right? But it starts out slow. Babies don’t do very much in the beginning. And you kind of work into becoming a parent that way. But as an entrepreneur, you have to kind of figure out, okay, what works for me and what is going to resonate with my audience.

[00:02:44] And so often that’s just to be determined as you move forward. And this is the part we don’t like, we don’t like trying something and having it not work. Right. So let me give you an example of this in my business. For many, [00:03:00] many years I’ve done webinars and every time I’m learning from someone, somebody who is masterful at marketing, I am learning their process.

[00:03:09] I can be very specific and share names. Even there might be people that you recognize if you run a company but for every big person out there, they have a way of doing a webinar and I have done their processes. And it’s interesting because over the last year or so I have developed self trust in this area.

[00:03:27] I’m telling myself, I’m just going to do it my way. I’ve done this enough. I’m just going to try it my way and see what works. And that has really helped me to connect more with my audience because I’m feeling really confident in the way that I’m sharing something in the way that I would want the information shared with me.

[00:03:44] Another element of self trust that I want to dive into before we talk about the nitty gritty of self trust is how self trust differs from self confidence.

[00:03:54] So self confidence is being able to feel any emotion that comes up. It’s [00:04:00] being able to have your back. It’s not necessarily confidence, which comes from past experience. We’re relying on things that have happened in the past that give us confidence to do something again in the future.

[00:04:11] Self confidence is being able to feel any emotion and move forward by allowing that emotion to be there. So it could be humiliation or self doubt or fear or anxiety or whatever’s coming up. We open up to the emotional experience of life and we’re here for it. That’s self confidence. Self trust goes deeper than that.

[00:04:34] It is beyond the inner knowing, which is part of it. It’s that inner knowing or intuition of next steps that we need to take and then actually taking action. In the process of that, all of those emotions are going to come up.

[00:04:49] We are going to feel the self doubt and the fear and humiliation, all the things that come with running a company, right. Or living our lives, but we’re opening up to that, we’re doing [00:05:00] things our way and we’re owning that. That is self trust. And I started to develop self trust by learning why I wanted and needed to say no to things.

[00:05:13] So that’s pretty specific. And I, I started to do this in a very small part of my life, not just with other people, but also with myself. And this is hard because when we say no, we ruffle feathers and people get disappointed and we tell ourselves we’re doing things wrong. Because we’re getting that kind of feedback and it’s scary because we love to belong, right?

[00:05:38] We love to feel like we’re doing things that are socially acceptable. And saying yes to people is something that is very socially acceptable in our culture, right? So I had to learn how to be okay with why I was doing the things that I was doing. And I had to trust myself to know what was best for me regardless of what other people [00:06:00] thought. Not only of my decision, but also of my life and my choices.

[00:06:06] Right? So here are some of the ways that we struggle and block ourselves from developing self trust. The first way that I thought of is that we judge ourselves. I would say 50 percent of the time I’m coaching my clients, I’m coaching them on their self judgment. We have stories about why we should be doing things differently

[00:06:25] because something didn’t work or that we should be different than we are and we have stories about why we shouldn’t struggle or that we should know something by now. If you have a weight loss journey, you’re like, I don’t I know this by now.

[00:06:39] I’ve worked on this for 30 years. I should know this by now, how does that feel? It totally erodes our self trust, right? We don’t have our own back when we’re thinking along those lines. And so the way to set the judgment down is to cultivate [00:07:00] self compassion or compassion for ourselves, love for ourselves.

[00:07:04] And the way that we do this is we have to stay curious. About what’s going on. We got to practice and start being really good at asking curious questions and paying attention to the tone of voice that we’re using when we’re asking these questions. So let me give you an example of this.

[00:07:20] The question is: what’s going on? So listen to the tone of voice that I’m using. We could ask yourself something like, okay, what’s going on? Okay. You think of that, think about the tone of that question. It’s very critical. It is kind of this finger wagging mom that’s asking that question. What’s going on?

[00:07:38] What’s going on with you? Why are you doing that? Okay. Now let me ask you with a different tone. Tell me what’s going on right now, Love? Tell me all the things. And you could even ask further questions. Okay, let’s take a look at the numbers and tell me the story that you’re telling yourself as you’re looking at these [00:08:00] numbers.

[00:08:00] What are you making these things mean? Tell me a little bit more about that. Why does that story feel important to you? What happens if we don’t believe that anymore? Okay, you see the difference? Again, one of them is a very critical finger wagging tone, and the other one is just full of serious curious.

[00:08:25] Okay, that’s the tone of voice that I want you to adopt, is the serious curious. I just made that up on the spot. It’s going to be a thing now. Okay, the next way that we struggle with cultivating self trust is we people please. The antidote to people pleasing is, of course, developing More self trust.

[00:08:43] So let’s talk about how this shows up. When we people please. We are putting someone else’s wants or needs and desires above our own. And this is not intentional. This is something that’s a knee jerk response. And this is often chronic. So it’s a pattern behavior. [00:09:00] We say yes, because we don’t know how to say no. We don’t know how to trust ourselves to protect our time and protect our schedule.

[00:09:09] And so we say yes, we feel like we should say yes, because someone asked. And I remember when I decided that wasn’t a good enough reason to say yes anymore, just because someone asked me to help out. And this again was a time, I’ve mentioned this multiple times on the podcast, but this was when we lived in Germany and I was experiencing a lot of depression and a lot of anxiety at this time of my life.

[00:09:33] This was back in the 2012, 2013 timeframe. I was homeschooling all my kids. And I knew that if I didn’t put my mental and emotional needs first, There would be some serious consequences for me and my family. So I had a pretty big why I would say. And because of that, because I was so determined to get my health back and to feel normal again, I became very [00:10:00] protective of my time because I knew that as my time slipped away and I was giving it away to all the people, I wasn’t doing the things

[00:10:08] to take care of myself and to take care of my mental, emotional, as well as physical health. And I kind of got a little messy with my Nos. Anytime anyone would ask for something, I kind of went into attack mode, actually. And I was like, no way! You can’t have any of my time. It’s mine. And it got to a point where I kind of stepped on people’s toes and I ruffled feathers because I was so angsty about it.

[00:10:35] And that’s okay. Lots of compassion for myself back in that timeframe, because I was learning how to do that. But I learned over time how to soften into self trust. And of course I didn’t know anything about self trust or coaching or anything at the time. This was just my experience. I’m like, okay, no is great, but how can I say no with more kindness and with more clarity and with more grace.

[00:10:59] And [00:11:00] so I learned how to do that. I became very loving when I said no, not only of myself, but also understanding that I can totally love someone for asking for my help or for my time. And I can still have a wonderful friendship and relationship with them. And the answer can still be no. And that’s okay.

[00:11:19] So I had to learn how to cultivate more of my feminine energy in order to lead in my life. I had to tap into my intuition and the things that I wanted and how I wanted to be. I had to develop more empathy for myself. I had to kind of cultivate this idea of wholism for myself and what I wanted. And I had to kind of tap into this sense of cooperation.

[00:11:44] When you’re in that more masculine state, you’re very competitive. You’re not tapping into intuition. You’re not being empathetic and you’re into more of a parts to whole instead of a whole to parts place. Okay. The next way that we [00:12:00] really struggle with self trust is we get sucked into imposter syndrome. And imposter syndrome is something that we create in our minds.

[00:12:10] It’s not actually a thing, but it’s something that we buy into and we’ve labeled it as imposter syndrome because I think it’s so common that we all agree how it feels and what we do. So when we’re struggling with imposter syndrome we tell ourselves it should be done like

[00:12:27] So and so. We see someone else that we admire and have results that we want and we tell ourselves it should be done this way. Right? And then sometimes we feel bad because we’re copying someone else or because we share their strategy as if it’s ours. Okay, now that’s just copying. It’s not necessarily imposter syndrome.

[00:12:48] But let me give you an example of how this originally showed up. So when I first started teaching plant based nutrition classes way back in 2007, this was a long time ago, I actually didn’t charge anything for these [00:13:00] classes. For actually several years in a row, and part of that is because I felt like, well, I was just sharing someone else’s information and research and content from books that I had read, even though there were probably a dozen to two dozen books that I had read on the topic but I just felt like, because I didn’t write the book, I shouldn’t charge. But in the same time, I was also sharing what made the most difference in my life. And I was sharing my processes to implement the material that I learned.

[00:13:29] So on my journey, I had to really set down these ideas that if it was someone else’s idea first, it couldn’t be something that I could expand on or teach about too. So let me talk about ways that we do this. First of all, this comes from a relationship with ourselves. The more I love myself, the easier it is for me to trust myself and to trust my knowledge on something. So you never want to quote someone without sharing a source [00:14:00] for sure, and you don’t want to share someone’s content in a way that they share it. You want to share it in your own way. And in order to do this, we have to be connected with ourselves. This comes from within ourselves. Do we like this? Why or why not?

[00:14:14] Is this going to help someone? Why or why not? We can totally share how things have made a difference for us, and then we can do it our own way. And I’ve heard people say there are no new ideas. And I wouldn’t necessarily 100 percent agree with this. I think there are definitely more discoveries happening all the time.

[00:14:31] And it comes from a different way of thinking about something and asking ourselves new questions in order to create new theories about things. But this idea that there are no new ideas has actually helped me to see that no one is going to run a business like me. No one is going to coach like me, even though in the self help space, there are lots of similar ideas said in a lot of different ways.

[00:14:58] It’s not discouraging to me [00:15:00] because there’s only one me. So the way that I say something might resonate with someone out there that needed to hear it from me. And I’m going to say things that I know that not everybody agrees with, and that’s okay because I can’t be the coach for everyone. And that all boils down to loving myself, being able to say, I like the way that I’m doing this.

[00:15:20] And I like the message that I’m sharing because it’s made a difference in my life. And I know it’s going to help someone else. Okay. That is really what that boils down to at the end of the day. Okay. Now let’s talk about some other strategies in order to help us to develop more self trust.

[00:15:33] We have to embrace failure and learning and individuality in this process. So whenever you’re creating something from scratch, you’re for sure going to fail. Okay. I’ve talked about this many times on the podcast before, but I wanted to talk about this again today in a slightly different way. Failure has an impact

[00:15:52] on self trust if we are not doing the coaching work to manage our mind. Because when we fail, we often take it [00:16:00] personally. We make it mean that there’s something wrong with us. We make it mean that it’s not possible for us. So when we have cultivated self trust, we continue to believe in us. This is actually one of the reasons why I don’t share my exact processes for things because you are going to be doing something differently in your own way. What I do share is a six part framework when it comes to breaking through your burnout but it’s up to my clients to figure out how it’s going to work for them.

[00:16:32] Interestingly, the further people are along on this journey of self discovery and self help, the less information they need. And that really is where the magic happens. We need to understand why something isn’t working, which is usually a mindset issue.

[00:16:49] And sometimes we need clarity to pivot, to gain an idea of how another tactical strategy can be implemented and what it is that we’re doing. And it’s kind of [00:17:00] this dance that we do, right? We take action and we implement and we try something tactical. And then we have to manage our minds around why it didn’t work.

[00:17:08] That’s the mindset piece. We have to build our awareness muscles and what it is that we’re thinking and feeling and doing and what we’re making that mean in the process of that. Okay. So part of that is developing more of a growth mindset and resilience in life, especially in entrepreneurship. You have to develop thick skin.

[00:17:28] You just do. There are people who are going to say things you’re going to do things that people don’t like, and that’s okay.

[00:17:34] The thick skin does not have to do with resistance. The thick skin has to be with developing self confidence. It’s opening up to the emotions that we feel in living our life and being okay with whatever’s there, which is shame, humiliation, self doubt, insecurity, confusion and all of it.

[00:17:53] we have to get back on our feet and try things in a different way and do that process all over again. Okay, that is that growth mindset [00:18:00] piece. We’re not stuck doing the same things over and over or giving up. We’re trying and we’re pivoting and we’re tweaking and we’re managing our minds and we’re doing all of that.

[00:18:10] All right. And next thing that is so important when we’re developing self trust is building a support system. Now, listen, this is something that I actually have resisted for a long time in my business because I was so insecure in the way that I was doing things. I felt like I’m not doing it right because I don’t have the success that I want yet.

[00:18:30] And I don’t want to show up and be in a group of people who’s success seemed bigger than mine. It was hard for me to be in those spaces. But there is significance in having a support system for women. And whatever thing that you are creating in your life right now, whether it’s a business or whether it’s raising a family or whatever it is, this can sometimes be a very lonely road.

[00:18:57] And we need each other. Oftentimes we think that we’re the [00:19:00] only ones who struggle or suffer. This is one of the things that I learned from the woman who does all of my paid advertising. I mentioned Chelsea before on the podcast and working with her has been so amazing on so many different levels, but she’s a numbers gal and she’s also a no drama gal.

[00:19:14] And so when I show up and I’m like, Oh my gosh, this is not going the way that I want this to be going. And she makes a suggestion. My mind immediately goes to, how do I know for sure that that’s going to be successful? Who else has been in that way? And she has the mindset, like, it doesn’t matter because we’re going to try it this way.

[00:19:36] This seems like the next best move. What do you think about that? And that has been really hard for me to tap into myself and say, yes, let’s give that a try. Or how about we do this instead without all of the mind drama. So just having somebody as a sounding board, whether it’s one person or it’s a room full of people at a networking event.

[00:19:54] It’s so important for us to understand and know that we’re not alone in this process.

[00:19:58] She was the first person when it came to [00:20:00] webinars who said, you’re going to do this your way. And I’m like, what do you mean? I’m going to do this my way. I have all these experts that are telling me how to do a webinar. And finally I got confident and say, no, you know what? I’m going to drop my script. I noticed how many shoulds I had with that story.

[00:20:17] I should be done this way. And when I started creating webinars for myself and from myself, I had so much more fun doing them. And I felt like I was able to connect with my audience in such a different way. The truth is, is we need communities and I love to build communities. I love to network and I love to do live events because I love to be with people and I love to hear their stories.

[00:20:40] Okay. So let’s do a quick little recap here.

[00:20:43] So in order for us to develop self trust, we have to learn how to do things our way. Not only as women, but as individuals as well. The world needs you. It needs your ideas. It needs your enthusiasm for the things that [00:21:00] you love, your talents, your gifts, your way of doing things. And this is the way that we do it by developing self trust. And we do this, we develop the self trust,

[00:21:12] by creating a relationship with us, by developing self compassion and love, and having our own backs, and getting seriously curious about what’s going on for us and developing and staying in that growth mindset and creating strategic support systems to help us understand and realize we’re not alone.

[00:21:30] All right, you guys, that’s all I have for you today. Thank you so much for tuning in. Keep going for your dream because it matters. I hope you guys tune in with me next week. I’m going to be talking about the empowerment equation and advocating for your abilities to amplify

[00:21:48] your potential on next week’s podcast. But in the meantime, I’d love to hear from you. What kind of questions do you have about the episode today or other episodes that you’ve heard in the past? What ideas do you have for future episodes for me to [00:22:00] do? And if you liked this, podcast, I would love it

[00:22:02] if you subscribed and rated and reviewed the podcast, all the things. And if you’d like to explore options to work together, please book a call.

[00:22:12] You can find me at janeenalley.com/breakthrough. That’s janeenalley.com/breakthrough. Just book a call. I’m very interested in chatting with you. All right, you guys, until next week, have a beautiful rest of your week and we’ll talk to you guys soon. We’ll see ya. Bye bye.