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Trust . . . What Does It Really Mean

Trust is a concept that seems to create quite a bit of confusion.

I often see this with my clients.  They have non-conscious programming that it is not okay to trust others, that it is not safe to trust others, or that they are not able to trust others.

This non-conscious programming gets in their way because –  All good things come to us from others!  If you cannot trust others, you make it much more difficult for that "good" to come into your life.

The issue is that people don’t understand what trust means.  You can trust and also take care of yourself at the same time.

Trust is not some sort of eyes closed, blind faith, Pollyanna sort of thing.  "I trust that he or she is inherently good and will treat me right."

Real trust requires that you be awake and observant and that you see who people are and what they do.  Trust then is trusting them to be true to themselves, to be true to their patterns.

There’s an old Chinese proverb that speaks to this:  Fool me once shame on you.  Fool me twice shame on me.

We are creatures of habit and pattern.  We do the same things over and over and over.  Once someone shows you what he or she does, you should expect them to (you should trust them to) do that again.  Whether it is something positive or negative, something you like or dislike, they will do it again.

If we have a meeting and I am 10 minutes late you should not be surprised if I am late for our next meeting.  If I’m late for the second meeting you definitely should not be surprised that I am late for the third meeting.  I have showed you my pattern and you should trust me to be true to that pattern.

Trust needs to then be balanced with acting in your own best interest and with your own boundaries.  You can trust me to be late to meetings but if that does not work for you then you should not be doing business with me.

Many years ago we bought a house to fix and flip.  Our contractor showed us his patterns repeatedly.  He over promised, under delivered, and his word met nothing.

Unfortunately for our bank account, I was in eyes closed, not dealing with reality, Pollyanna trust.  I kept thinking – he’s a good guy; he will take care of us because that is what I would do.  I was not dealing with reality.  If I was I would have fired him and got someone in who would have got the job done right.

He had repeatedly shown us who he is and what he’s going to do and instead of trusting him to continue to be who he is, I was off in fantasy land.  There was a huge cost to this – financially, peace of mind, stress and frustration.

Real trust then has you have your eyes wide open – dealing with what is really there – and then taking the appropriate steps to act in your own best interest.