Building Trust
Scott Miker
In order to build trust in any situation, we have to demonstrate consistency in our behaviors and in our decisions. Without consistency there isn’t trust. But trust is one of those areas where many feel entitlement. They don’t realize that earning trust means consistently doing the right thing.
A great advantage of looking systematically at problems and opportunities and implementing habit changes is that this will automatically build trust. Others will see the consistency and it will translate into trust that you will behave in a certain way.
But even more important is the trust that you build within yourself. You stop fighting with yourself and guilting yourself into doing what you know you should. Instead you relax a little and trust yourself to do what needs to be done.
This is why the consistency element is so important. That is what helps solidify the habit and it also is what creates the trust. Trust comes directly from being able to do something over and over again. And if you slip up you know that you will get right back to it.
This is important in our personal lives with personal goals but also in our professional lives. In my career I have probably taken 20-30 different self-evaluations. Some were personality inventories, some were designed to find our strengths, and some were performance evaluations. All of this was just to better understand us.
The great advantage of systems and habits work is that you start to define who you are. You have a better sense of awareness. You know where your weaknesses lie and where to capitalize on your strengths. You can better understand a situation and respond rather than letting your emotions determine your reaction.
These self-evaluations were always funny to me. Many people will tell you this is who you are and there is nothing that you can do about it. Some will say this gives you a general overview but it is up to you to improve in weak areas and maximize strengths.
With a continuous improvement mindset focused on growing the systems and habits in your life you will see this as just another perspective. If it highlights an area that you want to improve you can simply look at it systematically and start to form better habits. But you certainly don’t see it as absolute. You trust that you can change and improve and that you know how to do that.
The next time the issue of trust comes up, start to evaluate the situation to see if trust aligns with consistency. Most likely you will see that the lack of trust follows a lack of consistency or, even worse, consistency in making the wrong choices. But if you find there is trust you will almost always find that there is consistency in doing the right thing.
The power of systems and habits is that it starts to build up multiple areas of our lives. It helps accomplish goals and reach our potential but it also starts to solidify our character. Building trust is just one example.