Trust That Things Will Work Out | Jack Canfield

Hi there, I'm Jack Canfield, co creator of the Chicken Soup for the Soul series and the author of the Success Principles. And today I'd like to talk about a critical ingredient for success. And without this key ingredient, I would say that achieving any true long term sustained success in life is pretty much impossible. Now what is it you ask? I'm talking about trust. Without trust in yourself, trust in others, and trust in the universe around you, you'll find your journey through life blocked with endless obstacles and setbacks that will prevent you from achieving what you want in life. Here's why trust is so important. If you don't believe in yourself, you won't dare to dream or set big goals for yourself. You'll always suspect that you're going to somehow screw things up and fail. And all too often you'll find that your suspicions, which are just limiting beliefs and have become self fulfilling prophecies. And if you don't trust others, you will find it very hard to form deep connections and build up the community and the support network that you need to thrive and accomplish your goals in life. You see, human beings are inherently social animals and we need to feel like we're in connection and community with each other. In fact, I actually think that's why the world is experiencing so many big problems lately. So many people have lost that sense of connection and are deeply suffering as a result. Now, being in community brings us joy and a sense of purpose and a sense of fulfillment. But to experience that connection, you have to be able to believe in and trust others. You have to be able to open yourself up to them and trust that they'll have your back. Now this goes for your family, your friends, your romantic relationships, your colleagues at work, and any social or spiritual communities that you may belong to. You need to trust that they will help you and not harm you. Now obviously you need to also trust your intuition when it tells you that someone might not be that trustworthy. But if you find that everybody is in that category in your life of not being trustworthy, it's more about a bad set of beliefs in you than it is about them. I'm talking about beliefs like all men are untrustworthy or you can't trust anyone who's rich. Now you also need to learn to trust the universe, God, Source, or whatever you personally call the infinite intelligence that creates, created and underpins our reality. And if you don't have faith that whatever created this universe is a benevolent force and that life is ultimately on your side, and that all things will eventually Work out in your favor. In the end, the level of your energetic vibration will always be at odds with what you're wanting. And that can actually repel what you need to achieve your goals. But what do you do when the trauma that you've experienced in your past has robbed you of the ability to trust? How do you find your trust again after you've experienced heartbreaking hurt or betrayal or grief or other forms of anguish?

This is what one of my students.

Asked me at a recent Breakthrough to Success event that we put on. She said, how can I learn to trust that things will be okay after ptsd? How can I truly and completely trust that the universe has my back and I won't become a bag lady? Now, this is an important question because when someone or something has. Has hurt you or terribly let you down, it can be hard to open your heart and allow yourself to have the faith in yourself or in others again. Many people after an event like this, convince themselves that maintaining a wary distrust of everyone and everything is the only smart thing to do. They think that refusing to allow themselves.

To trust again will protect them from getting hurt again.

But the fact is, if you let your past trauma hold you back from trusting yourself or trusting other people or trusting the universe, and you won't be able to live your best life or become the best version of yourself and fully experience all of the beauty, the love, the joy, the happiness, the fulfillment that life has to offer you. And that means that the past trauma wins. And because you're allowing it to still control your life, I'd like to help you break that cycle. So today I'm going to share some tips on how to start to trust again. Trust yourself, trust others, and trust the universe. And my first tip is this. Start small now. For many people, just the thought of trusting themselves or someone else can make them feel unsafe, like they're standing on shaky ground that could collapse or just fall out beneath them at any moment. If that sounds familiar, I encourage you to start by slowly growing your trust muscle one small step at a time. And just like your physical muscles, you need to work on building up and.

Strengthening your trust muscle. And one way is to start by thinking of some times when you actually trusted your heart or your gut or your inner guidance. And it did work out well some of the times when you trusted another person.

And it did work out well.

Make a list of those times and.

Review it every day for a couple of weeks.

It will help you strengthen a belief.

That you indeed can trust.

Now, another tip is to intentionally Practice actually trusting yourself and others trust is not a one time thing.

It's an ongoing practice.

So I encourage you to start taking small risks as often as possible. I recommend scheduling one, what I call outside your comfort zone activity a day. I'm not talking about big risks where there are the risk of repercussions if you fail that could have serious negative impact on your life. I'm talking about doing one small thing at a time that moves you outside of your comfort zone. This can be as simple as ordering a new dish that appeals to you at a restaurant, or smiling, or starting a conversation with a stranger online at the checkout counter in the grocery store.

Or asking a friend or someone at.

Work that you don't know that well to join you for lunch. If you're not a person who usually asks for things, it could be asking someone for something simple like one idea for how you could improve something in your life, or asking a friend for a hug, or asking someone for their favorite recipe or to recommend a good movie to watch. Or it could be going to a network meeting, or it could be something a little bigger if you feel like it. Like filling out an application for a new job, or asking for a raise, or going to a social event where there will be people you don't know very well, or speaking up in a public forum for something you believe in. Whatever makes you a little uncomfortable, but not something so big that it freezes you when you think about it. And then once it's over, whatever the end result of taking that risk is, celebrate the fact that you took it and that you survived it. And remember this. And this is really important. You have survived every risk you've ever taken. You're still here. Now. Here's why this step is so important. Every time you take a small risk and it's a success, you learn that taking risks can have a positive outcome. And every time you take a risk and it fails, you learn that you can experience failure and still survive the experience. Either way, you prove to yourself that you're someone who has the capacity to take risks and the resilience to survive the outcome. And the more you see yourself as a competent, confidence, courageous and resilient person, the more likely you'll be to take more courageous action in the future. This will bolster your confidence, build your self esteem, and make it a lot easier for you to trust yourself even more in the future. And in case you don't already know this, the more you're able to trust yourself, the easier it becomes for you to trust others and the world around you as well. Now my next tip is to take smart risks. And by that I mean if you're scared about taking a big leap into the unknown, look for ways you can make that smaller, like asking one person at a time instead of asking a large group of people all at once. And also think of ways you can prepare for what you're going to do, like practicing and rehearsing your request in front of the mirror with a close friend. And here's another example. I am 100% in support of you quitting a job you don't love so you can pursue one you think you would enjoy more. But I don't recommend you go into work tomorrow and quit your job if you don't have any experience in or training in the new thing you want to do, if you have zero money saved, if you have no other reliable source of income or already in debt and you have a huge monthly overhead like a $2,000 a month mortgage to pay, it's not a very smart risk to take because there's a very low chance you'll be able to have the massive success in your new chosen field right away, and a very high chance that you'll run out of money and not be able to feed your family, pay for your house, all that stuff in a few months you could be in real trouble. So a much smarter risk to take in this case would be to do your research and get very clear on what skills and expertise you need to develop in order to succeed in your new field and then work on acquiring them while continuing to work at your current job or some other pay position that will allow you to pay for your living expenses while you create the necessary foundations for building up your skills and experience and achieving your dream over a matter of months or years, rather than blindly hoping that you'll be an overnight success. And by doing your research, you clarify your path forward and you can complete your journey to where you want to be in small strategic steps that are much more likely to get you where.

You want to go.

Which brings me to my next piece of advice.

If your trust issues are more about.

Trusting others because you've been let down by other people one too many times, I encourage you to find one person you can trust. Now this could be a friend, a.

Family member, a spiritual advisor, a therapist, a counselor, a coach, anyone who has.

Your best interest at heart and who never or rarely let you down, and find that one person and spend more time investing in that relationship and be sure to express your gratitude to them.

And every time a limiting thought pops.

Into your head and says something like people suck or I can't trust anyone.

Take a moment to remember that at least one trustworthy person in your life.

Is proof that all people don't suck and that you can trust some of them. Maybe not all of them, as I indicated earlier, but it's important to remember that those people are the minority, not the majority. The vast majority of people are good people, and when you take the time.

To seek them out and invest your trust in them, your whole world will.

Open up and be enriched by the relationship.

My next tip for learning how to trust others is to always remember that.

Your thoughts determine your reality. So if you want to change your reality, you first have to change your thoughts. And that means consciously choosing to believe that you and other people as well as God and the universe are worthy of trust. And meditation and affirmations and visualization are all very powerful mindset tools that can.

Help you with that.

That will help you become more aware of your thoughts so you can release the negative thoughts and the mistrustful thoughts.

That no longer serve you and then.

Choose to replace them with more power positive thoughts that uplift and empower you. Now you can find a ton of these kind of free meditations and affirmations and visualization tools and other helpful resources at my website jackcampfield.com just go there and click on the Resources tab.

At the top of the homepage you'll see a long list of free blogs.

Videos and recorded podcasts that can help you. And the really great thing about taking time to do this kind of mindset work is you can actually experience very powerful results doing as little as five minutes of meditation or affirmations or visualizations a day as long as you're consistent.

Finally, my last tip is to go as slow as you need to go.

On your trust building journey and be kind to yourself along the way. Because you will have setbacks from time to time, there will be people who will disappoint you. Unfortunate things will probably still happen from time to time, but not nearly as often as you think, and you'll discover that you'll become better able to recover them so much faster if you make the decision to trust in yourself and the world around you instead of getting caught up in obsessing about what happened, your belief that it shouldn't have happened, and your belief that it was unfair. Now one last thing. If you find yourself dealing with the disappointment that threatens to trigger and activate your old trauma again, take the time to give yourself some valuable and much needed self care, such as going for a walk in nature, taking a soothing bubble bath, listening to your favorite upbeat music album, going out for coffee with a close friend, or going and getting your nails done, or getting a foot massage. You could also take five minutes to repeat some positive affirmations to remind yourself of how resilient you really are. But whatever you do, don't beat yourself up about whatever feelings might be coming up, because recovering from past hurts and trauma often takes some time. But if you consciously, intentionally open yourself up to trust again, I promise you it will happen and you'll be able to create a life full of love, connection and fulfillment. I guarantee it. All right, well, that's it for today. Thanks for watching and what I'd love you to do now is to share one small action you'll commit to taking to open yourself up and trust more fully again. I'd love you to post it in the comments below. I love hearing what you're committing to doing and if you found this video helpful, please make sure you like it. Share with a friend who might need it and subscribe to this channel for more videos like this one. As I said, for some additional tools and videos on how to change your life for the better, be sure to check out the Resources page on my website@jackhamfield.com There's a lot of great free material that can help you there. Thanks again for watching and have a great day.