In the last piece, The Intelligence We’ve Forgotten How to Trust, we talked about how we lost touch with trusting ourselves. How we were taught to trust our thinking over feeling. And how using AI became the evolution of deepening the same lost connection with our inner trust and sense of self.

Recognising that is one thing. Getting back to trusting yourself is another. That’s why in this piece, I want to give you a few starting points to practise trusting yourself again.

But first, what does it feel like to trust yourself again?

Trusting yourself rarely feels like a decision. It feels like a shift you can no longer unfeel. A change in perception. A revelation. A feeling you can’t quite pin down. Or simply realising: not this anymore. As if something clicks. Something that had been waiting, finally arrives. Something you missed without being able to name it.

Once it comes, you’ll know it. It’ll feel like relief. A full-body yes. This is me. This is right. As if a wave of calm, peace, satisfaction, excitement washes over you. The choice will feel obvious in hindsight, even if it didn’t five minutes before you made it. And the challenges that come with it don’t feel like obstacles. They feel like part of the life you’re meant to live.

Rebuilding that trust isn’t a spiritual project. It’s cultivating the courage to get curious again. Here’s where to start.

Which One Sounds Most Like You?

How you lost touch with trusting yourself shapes which practice below will actually help. Read the three, find yours, then let it point you to where to start.

You’ve unlearned to feel entirely. You describe yourself as pragmatic, rational, or unemotional. You make decisions with your head, collecting data, calculating risks, building detailed plans.
Start with: “Jump in before the plan is finished”.

You feel it, but only for a second. It’s easy to lose again, almost as soon as it arrives. You were taught thinking mattered more than feeling. That you’d be a fool to follow feeling alone.
Start with: “Question ‘right’ before you take it as fact” and “Catch the assumption that isn’t yours.”

You feel it clearly. A visceral, whole-body sense of your own knowing. But you override it anyway. You reach for proof and reason instead, because somewhere along the way, feeling got labelled dreamy, or untrustworthy.
Start with: “Let a wrong turn be data, not proof” and “Using AI without losing yourself to it.”

4 Ways to Practise Trusting Yourself Again

1. Question the assumptions you state as if they’re facts.

Notice these casual assumptions:
“That’s just how it’s done.”
“Everyone does it this way.”
“I have to reply within the hour or I’ll seem unprofessional.”
“A real business owner would have this figured out by now.”
“If I charge that much, people will think I’m arrogant.”

Each one sounds like fact. But none of them are. They’re assumptions you adopted somewhere: a parent, a mentor, an industry norm, a comment someone made once. Trace it back to where you actually learned it, and ask what makes more sense to you now instead.

Why this builds your self-trust: Every assumption you trace back and debunk proves the same thing. That “fact” was never really a fact. Just something someone else decided once, that you never questioned. And if that wasn’t solid, your own read on things never needed permission to be either. This isn’t about one choice. It’s proof you can know things on your own.

2. Jump in before the plan is finished.

This one’s for the planners. The ones still researching at 2am. Building SMART goals and fact sheets to back every choice before they’ll move, and getting paralysed instead, never quite daring to.

I don’t need to tell you what you already know, but don’t most plans unfold differently than you thought anyway? You can’t actually plan for everything, so the certainty you’re chasing was never really available to begin with.

Next time you’re thrown an idea or opportunity that feels right, stop trying to rigidly justify it, and jump in before the plan is finished. Trust your ability to adapt as it unfolds. Because that skill was always going to carry you, not the plan.

Why this builds your self-trust: Planners don’t actually believe the plan guarantees the outcome. They believe having one on paper is what makes it safe to move. But jump in without it, and you get real proof, not theoretical proof, that you can handle what comes. That’s a sturdier trust than any spreadsheet will ever give you.

3. Use AI without losing yourself to it.

Where before we turned to others, their frameworks, their success stories, AI is the newest place we send our trust. Letting it think, create, write, and decide for us. It doesn’t feel like outsourcing because it feels so efficient. But every time you ask before you’ve formed your own answer, you’re practising the exact habit that got you here in the first place.

You don’t need to quit AI to trust yourself again. You need one new rule: your answer comes first. Whatever you’re making, a strategy, a design, a plan, a piece of writing, try your own instinct first. Sketch it, write it, sit with the direction that feels right to you. Then bring in AI to structure it, sharpen it, or catch what you missed. Use it to enhance your process. Not to replace it.

Post line: Read the blog to find out why this builds your self-trust.

4. Let a wrong turn be data, not proof that you can’t trust yourself.

Next time a choice doesn’t land the way you hoped, notice the story that shows up right after it: “See, I should have researched more.” “I should have asked someone first.” That’s the moment a wrong turn gets turned into proof that your own judgement can’t be trusted, and that you need permission or evidence before you’re allowed to decide anything again.

Ask instead: what did this actually teach me? And what can I do differently next time? Rational thinking has bad days too, nobody calls logic broken because one plan didn’t work out. Your intuition doesn’t need to bat a thousand to be trustworthy.

Start Small

Pick one thing this week. Not your career. Not your whole business. One small decision you’d normally research, plan for, ask, or overthink. Notice the pull for safety. Choose the feeling instead. And get curious about what happens.

Ready to go deeper?

Untrap Yourself is the guided journal built for exactly this. To trace back where those assumptions and old patterns came from, rewire them, and rebuild a life led by trust in yourself.

Follow the Identity Project on Instagram or LinkedIn for insights, introspection, and education on becoming yourself again.