Trust is akin to being a high wire acrobat working without a net. It’s risky business for most, but for properly trained individuals, it’s as natural as breathing.

If you were training to be a circus wire walker, it seems your schooling wouldn’t begin 40 feet off the ground. My guess is you would begin about a foot off the ground and develop your chops before you practiced at progressive heights. Once you got to a certain height, you would have a safety net beneath you in case you made a mistake. There are the stories of ancient conquerors who burned their ships because it was the only escape route. It took a lot of trust in their abilities to be victorious on land to take such action.

Major league pitchers and golfers alike must trust the practiced program to be successful. A pitcher and a golfer drill in the mechanics of their motions. If you are throwing a 95 mph fast ball, all your mind needs is the location where you want it to land and then trust the practiced mechanics to get it there. The opposite happens, when the thinking mind jumps in between decision and execution. That’s when you have a hit batsman or the golf ball goes 40 feet right – into the lake.

We fall victim to the same lack of trust in our everyday lives. We are so intent on consciously figuring out every step along the way that we forget to notice that we are walking into a wall – again.

Trust takes recognition of the effectiveness of mechanics and practice.

Some people when exposed to the concept of trusting themselves buy in right away but fail. That’s because they think they can take a shortcut and not practice. Others practice and practice and also fail. They have not given up conscious control to just trust the mechanics.

There is a part of you that knows how to do what you want or desire. The missing link is trust.

Trust is not blind faith. People with blind faith usually are Pollyannaish in their approach. They want a pocketful of fairy dust to make things appear out of thin air. They are continually disappointed. They refuse to practice and hone this amazing skill.

So how can we get our level of trust to become an automated part of us?

You have to first own the belief that there is something bigger than us that is in charge of creation. Give it your favorite name. Then you must have the awareness that this creative force has your best interest at heart. Once those two pieces are in place, it’s time to begin your training.

Please don’t attempt to eat the cow at one sitting. You will lose your appetite. Start small and work your way up.

Begin to practice trusting yourself in activities whose results don’t have major consequences. For example, if you do your food shopping with a written list, leave the list at home and trust that you’ll remember to get all the listed items. It will take some practice to get consistent results. If you are going to give a speech, practice into a tape recorder without your notes and see how well you do extemporaneously. In a casual conversation, do not rehearse your response inside your head. Trust that you will have an appropriate response to what’s being said without having to calculate your answer before it leaves your lips.

Trust is such a freeing activity. It gets you out of your head and onto the playground. Work your way up incrementally until you can function at the top of the monkey bars effortlessly. I’ve mentioned this story before but it’s worth repeating here to illustrate the point. A young surgical intern was assisting an accomplished heart surgeon on a delicate procedure. The elder doctor explained that they had 45 seconds to do this specific procedure and if it didn’t happen in that time frame, the patient would likely die. His final instruction to the intern was, “We’ll have plenty of time if we don’t rush.”

His instruction was another way of saying “Trust the program.” Aspiring surgeons have lots of practice before they are put into life or death situations. If they have diligently practiced, they can trust themselves to perform when their time comes.

I wouldn’t want you to take this on faith. Practice polishing up your trust and notice the results. It’s then that you will know for sure there is a part of us to rely on when difficulty stares us in the face.

I trust this makes sense.

All the best,

John