The Cycle of Self-Trust

Your relationship with yourself is one of the key foundational pieces of the quality of your leadership.

The Cycle of Self-Trust is an important driver of whether your relationship with yourself is growing stronger, staying the same, or diminishing.

The model is simple, as the image shows. The declare-deliver-reinforce loop will build on itself, either in a positive way; growing your self-trust, or in a downward-spiral way; slowly over time eroding your internal alignment.

Your relationship with yourself is a key piece to your leadership quality.

The most common way I see this cycle showing up for the leaders I work with, is in their personal integrity levels — their ability to keep their word to themselves. I talked last week about a friend going to the gym, and that certainly applies here.

But there are tons of easy work-related examples too: “I’ll send you that article tomorrow.” - “I’ll follow up with the client this week.” Are you spouting promises without taking your own word seriously? It’s ironic that we sometimes give ourselves blind trust by saying, “Oh, I’ll remember.” You really might not, so write it down the minute you promise something to someone (including yourself).

Here are some simple ways to increase your self-trust:

• Attend to your own needs first

• Show up for yourself and be kind to yourself when you feel upset

• Notice gaps between what you’re saying you want and what you intend to act on

• Keep your word to yourself and others. When you can’t, own it and be responsible for any mess that was created.

The number one relationship we have is the one with ourselves. Having that rock solid foundation allows you to stand strong in your leadership out in the world.

What will you do today to increase your cycle of self-trust?