Do you remember the time when you were learning to ride a bicycle? If you were like me, you probably went through a process of falling and swerving while desperately trying to maintain your balance. And then one moment you probably discovered that you did not need to do much to ride a bicycle. Apart from starting and stopping, riding a bicycle does not take much skill or effort. In contrast to walking, bicycling does not require us to actively maintain a balance, we just need to trust the gyroscopic action of the front wheel. Once you learned to lean into that trust, it probably was difficult to understand why learning to ride the bike was hard!
Trust is not only essential for riding a bicycle; trust is also essential in our interactions with others. Without trust, everything becomes difficult. We become guarded in our conversations and communication is hampered. Trust is needed to believe others, which avoids that we undermine relations with doubt. A lack of trust may cause us to second-guess the intentions of others which may lead us to withdraw into a maze of speculation. A lack of trust may come in the way of forming stable and loving relationships. Trust is a mindset needed for love and constructive collaboration. True delegation is built on trust, because our trust empowers others to fully give themselves to their task. A lack of trust does not only hamper interpersonal interactions; within organizations a lack of trust also drives the growth of a bureaucracy. Once that bureaucracy is established it can become a purpose of itself which fuels its growth even more. Distrust can feed on itself …
A lack of trust may be caused by a hurt, betrayal, or trauma from the past. It is natural to conclude after a painful event that we will not allow this to happen again. What aggravates this is that trust can easily be lost, but it can take a long time to rebuild that trust. Sometimes the pain from the past is so intense that we are not even aware of the pain anymore, at least at a conscious level. In that case it is even harder to regain trust.
When working or living with others, accountability is important for building trust. If we don’t follow up on our commitments or at least communicate that we are not able to follow up, trust can easily erode. A lack of trust and an urge to control feed off each other. If we don’t trust that things will be okay if they are not done our way, we want to control, we insist that others do things our way. Conversely, if we have an urge to control others, we tell ourselves that others cannot be trusted to do things “right.” I return to the issue of control in another newsletter.
A healthy lack of trust at the right moment can be useful. We all have a limit to the trust that we muster. To take a personal example, I lock my bicycle when I leave it outside. This means that I don’t trust others to leave my bicycle alone. Trust that is unbounded can lead to naivety that may backfire when others take advantage of our trust. But it is important to limit a healthy level of distrust and not let our life be dominated by suspicion or paranoia. As a scientist I know that a healthy dose of doubt helps science move forward because a lack of trust in existing explanations or the current state of the art is a driver for innovation.
Trust is important in coaching. Effective coaching needs communication that is open and unguarded. Working from a basis of trust is essential for having this type of conversation. For this reason, trust and confidentiality are core values in my coaching work. Trust is also important for my coaching for another reason. Our problems and barriers may be related to a lack of trust. As I mentioned earlier, a past hurt or trauma may be in the way of trusting. This is why in my coaching we sometimes go back to the past. In doing so we may access the memory of the body to guide us in the exploration of past experiences and the pain that this causes.
How trusting are you? Is your basic stance one of trust, or do you struggle to trust? Do you trust yourself, or are you held back by self-doubt? Are there people or situations that trigger distrust? If so, is that something you want to change? Are you trustworthy to others? Do you act with integrity and take responsibility for your actions? If not, what would you like to change, and how might you begin? Do you sometimes say or do things that erode others’ trust? As a coach, I can help you build your trust in others and in yourself and become a trustworthy presence.