Episode Transcript
[00:00:01] Welcome to the Happy Stack Podcast, where we explore the science and strategies behind creating a happier, more fulfilling life. I'm Teriann Richards and I partner with organizations to address the root causes of burnout, disengagement, and stress. Equipping leaders and teams with the tools they need to thrive, both organizationally and personally. Each episode, we dive into practical habits, insights, and strategies to help high performers like you level up from the inside out. Let's get stacking.
[00:00:34] You cannot build a life you love if you don't trust the person building it. Let that sink in for a second. Because most of us don't have a strategy problem. We have a self trust problem.
[00:00:48] We don't actually believe ourselves when we say that this time it's going to be different, right? Because we've broken too many promises to our own body, to our own boundaries, to our own goals.
[00:01:02] And over time, that becomes the biggest form of burnout. There is the exhaustion of not being able to rely on ourselves.
[00:01:12] And I speak a lot about this when I'm coaching clients and working with folks. I call it the success cadence. A lot of people always are asking, like, how do you become more confident? And I always say, confidence is built through competence, and competence is built through trusting that what we say we'll do and through repetition.
[00:01:34] And far too often, when I say I'll do something, I don't do it, right? And I'm speaking in broad terms, right? Because we live in a world that's obsessed with metrics, money, followers, performance, productivity. But there's something sort of underneath it all that nobody tracks. And if your self trust is low, there is literally no external metric that will ever help you feel like it's enough. Because we can't outperform the stories that we tell ourselves when nobody else is watching, right?
[00:02:14] So I want to start with a question.
[00:02:15] When was the last time you said that you would do something for yourself and then you actually followed through?
[00:02:23] Not for your boss, not for your family, not for your kids, not for your image, for you.
[00:02:29] That is the muscle of self trust. That is how you create a success cadence. I said it. I did it. I said it. I did it. I said it, I did it. And like any muscle, it weakens when you neglect it.
[00:02:45] The science is pretty freaking clear, right? In neuroscience, the prefrontal cortex, the part of your brain responsible for planning, decision making, and willpower, works literally hand in hand with the limbic system, which handles emotion and reward, right?
[00:03:04] So every single time that you say you'll do something and you don't you create what's called a prediction error. Your brain learns we don't follow through, right? And it starts discounting your own words as unreliable data. In other words, it stops trusting you, right?
[00:03:23] So even when you want to change, your subconscious doesn't believe you do. Like, I don't know, I think she's psyching. Like, I don't think that's real. And that's why a lot of times you see, and I mean, we're coming to the end of the year right now, so New Year's resolutions are going to start, you know, folding in.
[00:03:41] That's why motivation fades, because your brain is literally saying, what's the point? Right before you even start going to the gym or making those cold calls to potential clients, your brain's like, what is the point of this goal? We don't do what we say we're gonna do because you have literally trained it to doubt you, right? And this is why I say self trust is like the ultimate KPI key performance indicator for anybody who was wondering. It determines whether your goals stay with intention. Right. Or become reality.
[00:04:20] Right? So whether you intend to make something happen, maybe, or if you're actually going to make something come to fruition.
[00:04:29] Self trust is the foundation of. Of consistency, of confidence, of integrity.
[00:04:37] And it's not something that we can earn by thinking. It is literally built by doing the act of doing the thing we said we were gonna do.
[00:04:50] I wanna tell you a story years ago, and anyone who knows me is listening to this going, like, really? Was it years ago? Terianne. But I'm gonna say years ago, I used to over commit to a lot of things.
[00:05:01] So it might be my board, responsibility, social events, fitness routines, work projects, you name it, right? And I tell myself, hey, ta, you can handle it. I always do, right?
[00:05:14] But I didn't handle it. I hustled it, I forced it. I overrode every internal signal that said, hey, dude, slow down. And when I couldn't keep up anymore, I didn't just feel tired, I felt ashamed, right? Because I had built my identity in a lot of the things that I said yes to.
[00:05:37] And because it wasn't just about what I didn't get done, it was about who I stopped trusting in the process, right? I'm saying yes to all these things. It's like, you know, putting four balls in my hand right now and asking me to juggle. I can't juggle.
[00:05:52] And so I'm saying yes. I have people who are relying on me. I have people who are Expecting certain things to come to fruition and I throw the balls in the air and I start dropping them one by one.
[00:06:04] And it wasn't that I couldn't get it done, it was that I stopped trusting me. That was the worst out of going through all of that. And what I've noticed is, and I know I'm not alone, right? The problem with high achievers is we are great at keeping promises to others at the detriment to ourselves, right?
[00:06:26] We will stay up late finishing a client project, but skip the workout that we said we would do, right? We'll show up for a friend's crisis but ignore our own crisis. We'll say yes to everyone else's needs and a lot of times not even know that ours are screaming, right?
[00:06:45] And to me, the ultimate self portrayal is not doing for us what we said we would do, right? You cannot build confidence on self betrayal.
[00:07:00] And this is something that I think is really hard to digest for a lot of people. I think like if you read it in a book or you see it on social media, you're like, yeah, that makes sense. But that doesn't relate to me as it is, I'm good right now because I think there's a lot of us that just don't recognize how often we are dismissing our own needs. We are not following through on the things that we said we would do for us. And because, you know, Monday will come. My mom always used to say like, I'll start my new workout on Monday, I'll start the noon diet on Monday, I'll start the thing on Monday. Mondays were always my mom's thing and Mondays never really came. I mean the Monday, the physical Monday came, but somehow the things she wanted to do always got pushed off, right? And research from the University of Chicago found that people who maintain internal integrity, meaning alignment between what they say they will do and what they actually do, report significantly higher life satisfaction regardless of how much money they make or what their title or status is.
[00:08:08] Because self trust creates psychological safety inside yourself.
[00:08:16] It's knowing that even when everything is chaotic around us, when life starts falling apart, you won't that you will show up for you the same way that you show up for everyone else.
[00:08:31] That right there is the foundation of real resilience.
[00:08:37] So how do you build self trust when you have spilt spent years eroding it?
[00:08:45] Number one, lower the bar.
[00:08:49] I know that sounds counterintuitive, but most people destroy their self trust by over promising and under delivering to themselves, right? I'm gonna work out every day.
[00:08:58] Didn't work out every day. Canceling. Maybe I'll start next month, right? I'm never drinking again. Go out on Thursday night, went to a conference, had a glass of wine. Guess I'm gonna drink all weekend, right? I'll start waking up at 5am, got up at 5.30am, snooze, go back to bed, right?
[00:09:15] It's not that you can't do those things, it's just that your nervous system doesn't believe you yet, right? You're building trust with yourself, so start small.
[00:09:29] And this kind of comes in the compartment of micro promises.
[00:09:35] So rather than saying you're gonna work out every day, say you're gonna work out one day this week, right? And then compound, build upon that over the next few weeks, right? Rather than saying I'm never drinking again, just, you know, whatever that amount is that you typically drink, how about you cut it in half? Like something that just a little bit more realistic that you can actually keep up with.
[00:09:57] When you create a micro promise and you hold that boundary so you actually fulfill it, you keep it simple.
[00:10:06] Every time you follow through on that small promise, your brain logs evidence that you are trustworthy again.
[00:10:16] Step two, stop outsourcing your validation. Ooh, in a world of social media, this one's a baggie. When your self worth depends on other people's approval, your self trust becomes conditional.
[00:10:30] You'll make choices that look smart but internally feel wrong.
[00:10:36] You will stay in situations that drain you because they look, quote unquote successful.
[00:10:43] That is not how we build trust. That is just compliance.
[00:10:47] Self trust. Sounds like this decision might not make sense to everyone, but hey, it makes sense to me, right? It's the quiet knowing that you can handle the fallout of your own choices. It's okay if people don't like you today. It's okay if people disagree. It's okay if you let people down. Just don't let yourself down, right?
[00:11:09] That is how you build self trust. And that's how you start to feel free. Because there is a weight that comes from trying to keep up up with everybody else's expectations and not our own, right? Step three, repair.
[00:11:24] Do not punish when you break a promise to yourself, because I promise you, you will.
[00:11:30] Most people go straight to guilt. Messed up again. I can't stick to anything. I'm, you know, enter in the crappy things that you say between your two beautiful ears.
[00:11:41] Guilt is not productive. It keeps you and me trapped in this ridiculous identity loop.
[00:11:48] And so what I'm asking you to do is Shift to a space of repair.
[00:11:52] So ask yourself, what triggered me to drop this promise? What could I do next time to avoid that?
[00:11:59] What would have made it easier to keep the promise to myself?
[00:12:03] This is how you start gathering data, information to learn from.
[00:12:09] And that's, I don't know if anyone else noticed, that's emotional intelligence, right? Like that's how you build emotional intelligence is having that internal conversation with yourself to start recognizing where your strengths are, where your gaps are, I. E. Weaknesses, like everyone else wants to call them, but I call them gaps. It's just, you know, hey, I want to be this great. I might be only this great. There's a gap. Like, how do you improve that, right? And none of us were born perfect. And if any of you message me and be like I'm that one, I'd be like, okay, let me interview you and you can tell me how you're perfect. But none of us are born perfect.
[00:12:41] All of us have things we say and we do on a day to day basis that are just ridiculous and oh my gosh, I hope nobody ever finds that out. But the way you get better is to gather the data of those mistakes, of those whoopsies of those falling on your assets and then you learn from it and you do better the next time, you improve the next time, right? And then step four, create rhythms or rituals of proof.
[00:13:10] You cannot read a book. Listen to me, I don't know, journal your way to self trust. None of it's going to happen. You have to actually stack the evidence, right? Like a lawyer in the courtroom. And you need to stack and compound the evidence that says you have proof of how you should trust yourself. And so these are proof rituals. So every night, write three things down that you followed through on, no matter how small they were. It could be having the hard conversation, sending that email, cooking a healthy meal, going to the gym, taking a walk instead of doom scrolling. Whatever it is.
[00:13:47] This is not about perfection. This is about pattern recognition. Because there's the saying what you focus on expands or grows, right? When you look for evidence of consistency, your brain learns that we, you are the kind of person who follows through.
[00:14:10] Step five, integrate your values.
[00:14:13] Most of us create goals and I don't know why we do it. Yes, I do. I know why. But that'll be a whole other podcast. Most of us have goals that are completely disconnected from what we actually value, what is actually of importance to us.
[00:14:28] We chase more because we've been told that's what success looks like. But if you do not Trust your compass. Every mountain will feel like the wrong climb, right? So you need to ask yourself, what are my top three values right now in the season? And yes, your values do adjust and shift. Like, I mean, let's be clear, my values that I had at 18 and 25 and 35 are very different today as a 42 year old, right? It just, they shift. And so you have to make sure that the goals that you're setting for yourself, the things that you're chasing in that season of your life, are in alignment with the you that you are today, those core values. And if you don't know what your values are, I mean, I can certainly create a PDF maybe in the future of how to find your values. It's something I do with my coaching clients, but you can Google it too to figure out like, what are those core values that dictate your direction in life? And then ask yourself, do your daily actions align with those? Right? And if not, it's no wonder that you would feel disconnected from yourself. It's no wonder that you wouldn't trust yourself, right? Because alignment builds trust, just like misalignment erodes it, right?
[00:15:41] So when you rebuild self trust, something really awesome happens.
[00:15:47] You stop needing motivation.
[00:15:50] Motivation is for people who don't trust themselves. Yet when you trust yourself, you don't need to feel like it, you just do it. You do the thing.
[00:16:00] And that's when life starts to feel just a tad bit lighter, a lot more grounded and more peaceful because you're no longer waiting for permission.
[00:16:11] You're operating from alignment.
[00:16:14] So my challenge to you, for you this week, is to just pick one micro promise that you can work through something so small that you actually couldn't fail, right? Maybe it's a 10 minute walk, maybe it's closing your laptop by 8pm Maybe it's saying no. And then keep the promise to yourself. That's the start of rebuilding the most important relationship that you'll ever have. And that's the one with yourself. Because the truth is, trust is not built in big moments. It's built in the quiet, everyday decisions that nobody sees. And if you can learn to trust yourself again, you will stop chasing certainty and you will start creating it for yourself.
[00:17:05] I hope you have an amazing day.
[00:17:08] Send me a note, let me know what that promise was.
[00:17:12] Hey, thanks for listening to the Happy Stack podcast. If you enjoyed today's episode, be sure to subscribe, leave a review, and share it with someone who could use a little extra happiness in their life. Let's keep stacking those wins together. See you next time.
