Self-Doubt: When You Stop Trusting Yourself

Self-doubt doesn't always sound like "I don't trust myself." Sometimes it looks like asking everyone else what they think before making a decision. Replaying a choice over and over again. Needing someone to reassure you that you're not overreacting. Staying in a situation longer than you want to because you aren't sure your reasons for leaving are "good enough." Or consuming endless books, podcasts, and social media because you believe someone else must have the answer you're looking for.

Over time, we can become so accustomed to looking outside ourselves that we stop listening to the voice within us.

When you stop trusting yourself, you start looking outside yourself for someone else to tell you what is true.

In this episode, Sarah explores how our conditioning and experiences can teach us to doubt ourselves, how self-judgment eventually erodes self-trust, and how that can lead us to outsource our worth, knowing, and decisions to the people around us.

She also shares her experience of deciding to move her family from Colorado to Portugal. There was no way to guarantee the decision would work out. Self-trust wasn't knowing exactly what the future would hold. It was knowing that if things didn't work out, they could trust themselves to decide what to do next.

In This Episode

How self-judgment eventually leads to self-doubt
Why self-doubt is about more than indecisiveness or confidence
How relationships and conditioning can teach us to distrust our own experiences
What self-doubt can look like in everyday life
Why looking outside yourself for constant reassurance can further erode self-trust
How self-doubt contributes to outsourcing your worth
Why breakups and divorce can deeply shake the trust you have in yourself
How to stop using your past choices as evidence that you can't be trusted
What healthy self-trust actually means
Why self-trust doesn't require believing you're always right
How small choices aligned with your real self rebuild trust
Why learning to trust your future self can reduce anxiety in the present

Trusting Your Past, Present, and Future Self

One way to think about rebuilding self-trust is through three versions of you.

Past you needs understanding. You can take responsibility for past decisions and learn from them without using them as evidence that something is wrong with you. The person you were then made choices with the information, awareness, conditioning, fears, and resources available at the time. The goal is to allow the past to become wisdom rather than evidence against you.

Present you needs action. Self-trust isn't built through affirmations alone. It's built through small experiences of staying aligned with your real self. Every time you honor a need, tell the truth, say no when you mean no, ask for help, listen to a feeling, or make a decision without abandoning yourself for someone else's approval, you create evidence that you can trust yourself.

Future you needs trust. You don't have to solve every possible future problem today. You can trust the version of you who will actually be there to meet that moment with the information, resources, strength, and support available then.

When you trust your future self, your present self doesn't have to solve the future.

A Practice for This Week

Notice when your first instinct is to look outside yourself for an answer.

Before asking someone else what they think, pause and ask yourself:

What do I think? What do I feel? What do I know? What do I need? What feels aligned with who I really am?

Then listen.

You can still seek advice, support, and other perspectives. Healthy self-trust isn't hyper-independence. But try hearing your own voice before inviting everyone else's into the room.

Then look for one small opportunity to act on what you heard.

Every time you do, you're teaching yourself:

I listened to myself. I stayed with myself. I didn't abandon myself.

That's how self-trust gets built.

Go Deeper

If you want to better understand your own Disconnection Loop and begin identifying the conditioning, fears, stories, and protective strategies underneath your patterns, the Discovering Your Disconnection Loop Workbook walks you through the process and introduces the CHANGE Method to help you find your way back to yourself.

Explore the Disconnection Loop Workbook

Next week, we'll explore the final stage of The Disconnection Loop: Withdrawal. After judging and doubting ourselves for long enough, sometimes it begins to feel safer to stop listening altogether. We withdraw from our feelings, needs, voice, other people, and ultimately ourselves.

You don't have to trust yourself to know exactly what the future holds. You only have to trust yourself enough to take the next brave, aligned step and know that you won't abandon yourself along the way.