Hey coach! I am super excited to be back with you today – and let me tell you WHAT: this episode has been a long time coming. It’s been wanting to come through me for such a long time. And; truly developing self trust has been one of the things that has helped me grow my business so much faster AND more sustainably. 

I’ll try not to go on too many tangents, but I want to give a more full picture of what self trust means – the intricacy, complexity and how much of your life is deeply affected by it.

So, self trust might sound a bit vague – and it might not strike you as a hugely important business or marketing aspect. But it is REVOLUTIONARY. And; let me tell you why:

As children, we were raised by parents or authority figures, right? This relationship, for the most part, consisted of us following rules and orders from these people. Then, we have the school system. We get a curriculum, we learn what they tell us to learn, and regurgitate that information back. Then we get into a corporate job. We have bosses or managers telling us what to do and how to do it. We get orders as to how things should be done and not. There are systems and political structures, even, for us to follow. 

I talk about all of this to make it GLARINGLY obvious that through our social condition, for all of our lives, basically, we’ve been taught to listen to others, and not trust ourselves to know the best way – for us and what we want to do in life. If things has felt off, we try to pull ourselves together and just get on with it – or even HEAL past it so that we can get back to business.   

So, as coaches, when we go to build a business, we are like deer in the headlights. So many of my clients feel paralyzed as to where to even begin. They write huge to-do lists but end up being overwhelmed and to soothe themselves, they scroll on Instagram or Tiktok, buffer eat, use learning to buffer – or do house chores (because it has to get done anyway, right?). Many of them spend hours and hours on tweaking their websites or branding – or even research a tonne of courses they tell themselves that they need to do before they’re ready to go.

As an entrepreneur, there are thousands of different self proclaimed business – and marketing gurus saying all of the things we need to get in place to create a booming business. AND; so many of them are giving contradictory advice. One business coach is saying that reels is the shit, another says that your email list is the alfa omega, another says that you absolutely need to have a Facebook group to attract more clients. Some marketing gurus go on and on about sales funnels, landing pages, SEO… the list goes on.

So, as I was saying; we have the social conditioning setting us up to become a small, specialized piece in a large, fixed corporate structure where we follow systems that are set in place for us. Then we have the overwhelm of becoming an entrepreneur, being bombarded with contradictory messages as to how we best get our practice up and running. 

But, MORE importantly is the caliber of people who are drawn to becoming coaches – and our inherent personality traits. People in the helping field; coaches, healers, energy workers, therapists, councilors, facilitators… we often grew up being the sensitive, family diplomats, energy regulators, caretakers of others’ feelings. Many of us are people pleasers. Not only did we put our own needs, wants and desires in the back seat to please others, many of us were also gaslit. We were told that we’re too sensitive, too emotional, this or that. We are often stuck in the pattern of fawn (you know, as in fight, flight, freeze, fawn). This means that we don’t have strong boundaries, that we’re overly agreeable, we eradicate our own personal truths, feelings and desires to fit in with others. 

So, as a consequence, we stopped trusting our inner guidance system. We started believing that others knew better than us. 

I remember one day in primary school, a good friend of mine asked me: “what’s your favorite color?” I remember replying “I don’t know, what is yours?” She responded “blue”. I then said “oh, yes actually, same here!” She looked at me in a funny way and said “why do you always say the same thing as other people?” I remember I felt stupid and shameful. But I’ve later learned that, I didn’t trust myself AT ALL. I was a very passive passenger in my own life. Just responding to what everyone else wanted and needed without regard for my own desires. As a matter of fact, I was so distanced from my needs and preferences that I just thought I didn’t have any. I prided myself on being easy going. But, a part of me knew that not having any opinions was also for fear of being judged, rejected or misliked. 

Self trust is closely linked to fear of responsibility, lack of self confidence, self doubt, victim mentality and the need to get things “RIGHT”. 

How Self Trust Affects Your Marketing and Business

So, coming back to self trust: I see this lack of self trust in ALL of my clients – with various degrees. I have compiled a list of the most common things where lack of self trust is stopping you all from marketing effectively and attracting more clients. So, see if you recognize yourself in some – or many of these; 

• You don’t trust yourself to get your clients the results that they come to you for 
• You find it hard to ask for money from potential clients, because you don’t trust yourself to deliver more value to them than they pay you – so a part of you feel like you’re tricking them for money!
• You don’t trust yourself to be the best coach FOR THEM
• You don’t trust yourself to know enough RIGHT NOW to be an amazing coach – so you research all of the courses and certifications and buy heaps and heaps of them
• You don’t trust yourself to have your own back if someone calls you out or judge you for what you share on social media 
• You seek validation from your followers on social media because you don’t trust that what you’ve created is good enough unless others are approving of it
• You don’t trust yourself to be able to build a thriving business 
• You don’t trust yourself to inherently know the best business to build for YOUR people – so you seek outside for everyone elses approaches, tips and hacks
• You don’t trust yourself to take breaks and relax while attract clients – so you keep yourself busy even if you don’t produce anything of significance from it
• You don’t trust yourself to create an impactful community – just by showing up as yourself, in service and from love – instead you tell yourself you need a business blueprint and a structure resembling corporate frameworks
• You don’t trust yourself to say the right things to make people want to work with you
• You don’t trust your procrastination to have a deeper message for you that, if you listened to it would CATAPULT you forward and towards your ultimate goals
• You don’t trust yourself to be able to sign clients by leaning on YOUR specific strengths, personality, and based on YOUR specific ideas, insights and visions 
• You don’t trust that what insights come to you is good enough to share – you don’t trust that YOUR brain is brilliant enough to make people see you as an expert
• You don’t trust yourself to BE an expert – because you tell yourself that there are so many experts within your niche that are more of an expert than you 
• You don’t trust yourself to have valuable things to say to your people – so you write your content down in your notes app, but don’t share it on social media
• You consider starting a YouTube channel or a podcast, but you don’t trust yourself to be consistent enough to pull it off
• You set up your calendar for your week, but because you don’t trust yourself to actually create real results from those tasks, you procrastinate and reinforce the lack of self trust of not getting any of results you desire 
• You don’t trust yourself to make the right priorities. When you work on a task, instead of getting into FLOW, you’re thinking that you’re kind of wasting your time because you think that you should be doing something else
• You’re considering hiring a coach, but you don’t trust yourself to get the most out of your investment. 
• You don’t trust yourself to have innate wisdom that the world needs, so you seek information from everyone else. You’re a consumer, not a creator. Because you don’t trust yourself to be good enough. 
• You don’t trust yourself to do all the work required to get the results you want, so you don’t invest in yourself. You see yourself as a gamble, and not a SAFE BET, because you don’t trust yourself enough
• You don’t trust yourself to pull things off, so you lose motivation and stop moving towards your goal – you might even start applying for other jobs because you’re not pulling your coaching business off.

All of this – you not trusting yourself have you procrastinate on daily tasks, not doing the things what will actually attract clients and it pushes your desired results further and further into the future. 

It’s not your fault. You haven’t done anything wrong. There’s nothing wrong or broken about you that you need to FIX. And for Goddess sakes, please stop shaming yourself for it! 

All of the results that you’re creating because of self trust can gently be dissolved through creating a better relationship with yourself. Learning to trust yourself is a beautiful process, that will not only make your marketing 1000x better, but will create ripples in your private life too. I’ve had clients tell me that their marriage is more peaceful than it has been for 10 years. I’ve had mothers telling me that they feel like a better parent and creating more connection with their children because of this. Yes, I help you with your marketing, but when we go so many layers deeper than just the surfacey stuff, we transform our whole life as well. 

I used to laugh when some of my mentors told me that loving ourselves and developing a better relationship with ourselves was one of the most important things to grow your business faster. I envisioned them saying that taking a bubble bath with essential oils and soothing music would have money rolling into my bank account. Hey, not that I have anything against bubble baths, essential oils and soothing music – I’m all about it. But it was not what my mentors meant. When I went on my own deep quest to build my business, what I arrived at was just that; to create a better relationship with myself is what has me moving faster, more efficient, more in flow, creating more impact, helping more people all the while doing it in a way that works best for my personality, my strengths and my expertise. 

It’s not about regurgitating affirmations that parts of us don’t believe are true. It’s not about the face masks, baths and other types of pampering. It’ about TRULY deepening our relationship with ourselves. To create a more solid foundation to build upon. 

When we grow our roots DEEP with self trust. When we learn to have our own backs no matter what happens externally, we are able to weather such bigger storms without crumbling. We are able to try things, fail and just use those fails as data points instead of shaming ourselves into a mental breakdown. We don’t get stuck in procrastination or in freeze patterns, because we know that no matter what happens, we trust ourselves to figure it out. We dare to invest more, we dare to show up bigger, louder, more expanded. 

Not to mention that… as coaches, this is what we SELL! We sell emotional wellness. We sell reducing peoples’ pain, we sell mental health. We sell peaceful relationships. We are ALWAYS our first, most important clients. We need to be a product of the product – an example of what’s possible. 

My clients learn to create such great self trust that 

So, if you’ve recognized yourself in the things I’ve been talking about here today, I invite you to get your sweet ass into a consultation and get started! You can jump onto instagram and book via the link in my bio – @martinethomassencoaching 

Until next time – BYE!