6. How to Trust Yourself More in Business

How to Trust Yourself to Make the Big Moves (Without Needing Permission from Anyone Else)

If you're holding back on your business — or anything else — that's usually a sign you need to grow your self-trust. When you trust yourself to follow through and handle whatever comes your way, it becomes a whole lot easier to try new things and make big moves.

Here's the thing: Your self-concept — the way you think about yourself in the world — determines how much you trust your own decisions. And if you're used to outsourcing your validation to other people who don't know you or what works for you, it's time to change that.

The evidence is already there. You've made good decisions before. You've solved problems, hit goals, delivered on promises. But here's what happens: we discount our wins. "Yeah, I made that sale, but they're the one who decided to buy." "I completed that project, but it was really the whole team."

Sound familiar? We're trained from childhood not to be "too big for our britches," so we deflect credit for our accomplishments like we were potted plants in the corner when success happened.

Time to stop that shit.

Your new assignment: Find one thing you've accomplished. Look at it from an outside perspective and identify every single action you took, every thought and emotion involved, every piece of previous experience you brought to that situation. Show yourself with concrete, verifiable facts exactly how you created that result.

The truth: Other people were involved, but so were you. You get credit for what you did.

What you actually need: You don't need 100% certainty that everything will go perfectly. You just need to trust that you're someone who can figure shit out, that this is worth trying, and that when things don't go as planned, you'll learn and try again.

The more you intentionally look for evidence of your trustworthiness and fold it into your self-concept, the more you'll know yourself as someone reliable and capable.

Ready to go deeper? Book a private business intensive with me. Visit my website for details.

Prefer video? Watch the video version of this episode on YouTube here: https://youtu.be/AG07nRheqqc

*****
I’m Kristen King, and I’ve been a coach for pretty much my entire professional career — since the early 2000s after my first solo business hit six figures less than 2 years out of college. Now, I teach humans from all walks of life how to shift from "fuck me" to "fuck yeah" so they can thrive in work, business, relationships, health, and more.

Over the last 15+ years, I've worked in for-profit and non-profit organizations across multiple industries, earned an MBA and a master's in publishing, given countless presentations and trainings for groups ranging from 4 to 6,000, and supported clients — both individuals and organizations — on four continents.

This isn't my first rodeo. In fact, there's been a lot of rodeos. So saddle up, friend, because we're about to go on an awesome ride together. I'm so glad you're here.

⬇️ ⬇️ ⬇️ WANNA KNOW MORE? ⬇️ ⬇️ ⬇️

Get your sweet ass onto my email list: https://bit.ly/kkemails

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Episode Transcript

Kristen King (00:09):
If you're ready for entrepreneurship to feel a
hell of a lot easier, you're inthe right place. Welcome to From
Fuck me to Fuck Yeah, thepodcast where service based
entrepreneurs learn how to tuneout all the fear based bullshit
that paralyzes you, and how totune in to your unique Fuck
yeah. I'm integrative businesscoach Kristen King, and I'm
pretty much the bad influenceyour mother warned you about. On

(00:31):
this show, I'm gonna teach youhow to peel back all the layers
of perfectionism, peoplepleasing and pressure that stand
between you and how you reallywant this whole entrepreneur
thing to go. And while we're atit, we're gonna do that for the
whole rest of your life, too. Iam not here to make your
business look exactly like mine.
I'm here to make your businesslook exactly like yours. So
stick around, fuck around andfind out what happens when my

(00:53):
bad influence rubs off on you.
Your mom's probably going tohate it, but you are going to
love it. Let's do this shit.
Hello, Hello, Welcome backfriends. Today, I want to talk
about how we can cultivate trustin ourselves as entrepreneurs.
If this is your first rodeo, ifyou're not used to being the

(01:15):
person making the decisions,making the plans, calling the
shots carrying stuff out,assessing your own performance
instead of somebody else doingit, this could feel really,
really unfamiliar. But even ifthis is not your first rodeo,
and you've been doing this for aminute, it can still sometimes
feel a little uncomfortable tobe the one doing those things,

(01:36):
and to be the one who is makingthe call, especially when there
are a lot of people out in theworld who are trying to tell you
that there's a right way to doit. That's different from how
you want to do it. And so today,I want to talk about how we do
start to develop that trust inourselves. So it becomes easier
to make decisions and to carrythose decisions through. And

(01:56):
this really centers around yourself concept. Your self concept
is truly just the way you thinkabout yourself in the world. And
you may have a slightlydifferent self concept for
different settings, your selfconcept as a parent may be a
little bit different from yourself concept as a partner from
your self concept as anentrepreneur, that's all really

(02:18):
normal. But this concept ofyourself about whether you or
someone you can trust to dothings it's going to carry
across all of those differentsettings. So as we're talking
about ways to trust yourself,and where to look for that
trust, it's going to be reallyimportant for you to as you
identify useful evidence anduseful information about

(02:40):
yourself to intentionally foldthat in to your self concept, to
intentionally use that as partof the way you think about
yourself and talk aboutyourself. And one of the most
effective ways for you to learnhow to trust yourself more
deeply, and to develop moreconfidence in your ability to
make decisions that are greatdecisions, and carry them out as

(03:02):
great decisions is going to beto look for concrete evidence of
the places that you have donethat in the past. And now
sometimes when I offer this tofolks, they'll say, Well, I've
never done anything right in mylife. I can't I don't have any
evidence. And I'm here to tellyou, that's definitely not true.
There's definitely things thatyou have done right. But for a
second, we'll just pretend thatit's true. What if we don't have

(03:25):
evidence of something? What dowe do, we go create evidence. So
if you are sure that you are theexception to the rule, and you
are the one person who hasnothing in the past that you can
use as evidence that you aretrustworthy, that you are
competent that you get thingsdone, and that you can do this,
okay, fine. But now let's gocreate some. So whether you're

(03:46):
taking action to create someevidence in the world, and we'll
talk a little bit more aboutthat action taking in a future
episode. But whether you'retaking action right now to
create results in the world, oryou're looking back at things
you've already done that you canuse as evidence or a
combination. Let's talk aboutwhat we do with that evidence
once we find it. One thing thatI often see happen, and this is

(04:10):
especially with my clientswho've been socialized as women,
but not only with those clientsis that they'll look back at
things that they have donesuccessfully in the past and
discount them. Well, yeah, Imade that sale, but I didn't
really do it. They did it.
They're the one who decided tobuy. So really, it's their

(04:31):
success, and I made that money,not my success. That's one that
I've had a couple times. Right,I completed that project, but
really it was the whole team whodid it. I should I'm just the
one who carried it across thefinish line. So I don't get any
credit here. Right we'll lookback at stuff and we'll find a
lot of reasons why we don't getany credit for it. Why we didn't

(04:52):
accomplish anything there. Whythere's nothing there that we
can use on our own benefit. Itsays though, we were like a
padded plant in the corner whensomething else happened. And
this is a habit that's reallytrained into us from early
childhood, we're told not to betoo big for our britches, we're
told not to brag, we're told notto share things, because someone

(05:14):
else might feel bad about it.
And so anytime we accomplishsomething, we would get negative
feedback for talking about itfor being proud of it for owning
it, you're so full of yourself,like those sorts of things. And
that helps to sort of perpetuatethis lack of trust in ourselves.
Because we don't trust theevidence of concrete things
we've done, as evidence that wedid that we have a tendency to

(05:37):
really outsource and delegatethat responsibility. So I want
you to first of all, look forthose places where you have
accomplished something where youhave done something, you've hit
a goal, you've made a decisionand seen it through you solved a
problem, you sold something, youdelivered a service beautifully,
whatever that thing is, go findone of those. And I want you to

(06:00):
really look at it from anoutside perspective, and
identify all of the actions thatyou took all of the thoughts and
emotions that were involved inthat process, all of the
previous experience that youbrought to bear in that
particular situation. And I wantyou to show yourself concretely

(06:23):
and specifically with verifiablefacts, exactly how you created
that result, that outcome, thataccomplishment that you're
looking at, it may be true, thatthe other person is the one who,
for example, decided to hire youand paid you. But they could not
have done that, if you didn't doall of the things that you did.

(06:46):
And if you weren't all of theways that you were to create the
situation where it was evenpossible for them to do that.
And so this is your chance tostart to get really curious, and
to be a detective who's reallysearching out examples and
evidence of all of the placesthat you have done things. And

(07:08):
you get to fold those into yourself concept into the way that
you think about yourself asproof that you are someone who
can be trusted to make gooddecisions, that you are someone
who can be trusted to deliver onwhat they promise that you are
someone who can be trusted tofollow through. And the more you
intentionally look for thesethings, and consciously think

(07:30):
about them, and consciously foldthem into your self concept, the
more you are going to come toknow yourself. As someone who is
trustworthy, the more you aregoing to come to know yourself
as someone you can trust andrely on. And so as you look at
areas in your business, wheremaybe you're feeling a little

(07:51):
shaky, you're a littleuncertain, it's totally okay to
do that to be shaky anduncertain. And to maybe not know
the answer. But I want youlooking for the places where you
don't trust yourself to be ableto find or figure out the
answer. Because uncertaintyisn't a problem. skill gaps are
not a problem. Those are all,you know, things are figured

(08:13):
out. And then we can get certainwe can learn a new skill and
plug the gap. It's not aproblem. The problem comes in
when we use not knowingsomething or not being sure how
something is going to turn outas proof that we can't trust
ourselves that we can't rely onourselves. And that's what has
us outsourcing our decisionmaking outsourcing our
authority, outsourcing ourvalidation to other people who

(08:34):
aren't us who don't know us whodon't know what works for us who
think we should be doing thingstheir way. And they may very
well be right. I mean, maybetheir way is awesome. But if
it's not awesome for you, thatdoesn't mean that there's
anything wrong with the way thatyou do it. And so when we don't
trust ourselves, we look toother people to give us a sense

(08:58):
of certainty and security andwhatever. And that has us
following other people's rulesthat may or may not apply to us.
So I want you to really focus onlooking for that evidence of
what you can be counted on forwhat you can count on yourself
for. You don't have to have 100%belief and 100% certainty that

(09:18):
everything is gonna go exactlythe way you want it to all the
time. The only belief andcertainty that you need is that
you're a person who can figureshit out is that this is worth
it to you to go forth and tryit. And that when things maybe
don't go the way you thought,the belief and the certainty and
the trust that you're going totry again and that you're going

(09:39):
to learn from it and that you'regoing to do something different.
And this is how you start to seeyourself as that trustworthy,
reliable person.
This is also how you start todevelop your resilience and your
own inner resources. So youdon't have to depend exclusively
on other people to feel likeyou're doing a good job to feel
like you know what you're doingto feel like your choices are

(10:01):
valid, you get to do that foryourself, you get to be nice to
you, you get to be kind toyourself, as you continue
getting to know yourself betterand better and better, as an
entrepreneur, as a parent, as apartner, as a neighbor, as a
person walking around in thisworld, who can figure shit out
and who can handle things and isactually pretty fucking good at

(10:24):
this. So please go forth,explore, build that evidence,
make those lists of thoseactions, those thoughts and
feelings, those things that youdid that you pulled in from the
past to inform what's happening.
Look at those lessons that youlearned. And really give
yourself credit for what youhave done, really take ownership

(10:45):
of the things that you did. sureother people were involved. But
so were you. And you got to havecredit for yourself. The more
you do that, the more deeplyyou're going to trust yourself
and the more confident andexcited and secure you're going
to feel in your business. Andthat is what makes it a whole

(11:05):
lot more fun. I can't wait tohear what you discover. Find me
on the socials, get in touchwith me through my website. Tell
me what you learned. Make sureon my email list, you can just
hit reply to any of thosemessages and give me an update.
I'll put the links to all thatstuff in the show notes. And I
will see you next time go forthand trust yourself

(11:31):
If you liked this episode,you'll love the Fuck Yeah
Entrepreneurs Society, mymembership program for service
based entrepreneurs just likeyou. In F-YES, you get lifetime
access to my 15+ years ofbusiness experience plus a ton
of other brilliant shit. Liveweekly coaching calls with me, a
digital library of kick asscontent to support your fuck
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(11:53):
group for 24/7 support inconnection with the F-YES
community. Get all the detailsand snag your spot at
kristenking.com/fyes, that's KRi s t e n king.com/the letter F
Y e s or just click the link inthe show notes. And speaking of
the show notes while you're downthere, make sure you're on my
email list and follow me on thesocials for more awesome Fuck
Yeah support and insiders onlyinfo right in your pocket.

(12:16):
entrepreneurships about to geteleventy billion times simpler
and a fuck ton more fun. I'llsee you inside F-YES.