Being Someone You Can Trust
How taking time to uncover our values can help us to show up as who we want to be.
š Hi friend ~ Welcome to Unfold, a project exploring what it means to be an embodied and empowered human. My name is Ocean Kiani and I use this newsletter to muse on play, movement, self, being, relating, creativity, and reality. Thank you for being here š
Iām notorious for doing ābusy workā.Ā
I love the feeling of sitting down and planning when Iām going to get something done. I love making lists and organising my notes. I love reaching out to people and scheduling meetings or planning events. I love feeling like Iām moving things forward.Ā
In Kelly Wilde-Millerās terms, this would be considered living in my spring. Planting seeds and putting things in motion for the summer months ahead. This quality makes me very effective at what I do for clients as an operations manager. Iām the one who keeps everyone accountable to their goals and keeps things moving forward. Iām the one that gets things done.Ā
But, Iām also notorious for completely disregarding the plans Iāve made. Iāll ignore the tasks Iāve scheduled in my calendar. Iāll reschedule meetings or cancel plans. Iāll ignore my to-do list in favour of something that feels more rewarding.Ā
Iāll perpetually live in spring and summer, do plan move, and rarely surrender to autumn or winter, taking time to harvest and reflect.Ā
Over the years, this is something Iāve put a lot of work into trying to āfixā. Iāll look for better project management systems, Iāll create fool-proof colour coding systems in my calendar or figure out the most optimal times to schedule meetings. This works for a little while until it doesnāt.Ā
Thatās not to say Iām sitting around avoiding everything or blindly going through life. Thereās a lot that I get done in the world. Iām hard-working and effective at my work for other people. But itās interesting to think that Iāve chosen a profession which requires me to organise things for other people. It feels good to hold others accountable to doing the things they want to do and make sure things are moving forward. Iām held accountable to their accountability, which distracts me from being held accountable to what I want to do.Ā
That being said, over time, Iād become better at not rescheduling meetings or have reduced the time between when I say Iām going to have completed a task and when I actually complete it. Iāve learned to ignore the little voice in my head that says āyou shouldnāt go to that social event and stay in insteadā, and Iāve put more accountability systems in place to help me be the person I say Iām going to be. This felt like meaningful progress, but there was still something niggling under the surface of my awareness which stopped me from stepping up and getting what I want from life.Ā
And then one day it dawned on me. I didnāt trust myself.Ā
My identity and sense of self were warped around the belief that I was just not going to do the thing. I didnāt trust myself to do what I say Iām going to do.Ā
And so it feels good to make the plan. It feels good to put a little thing in my calendar that tells me Iām showing up as the person I want to be. But ultimately, Iām still who I was yesterday. Iāve not made meaningful progress toward showing up in the world in the way that I desire to.Ā
What does it mean to not trust yourself?Ā
Take this newsletter for example. I have a block in my calendar every Monday 2-4pm to sit down and write. Itās placed there with every good intention. I want to be someone who sits down and spends time consolidating their thoughts and sharing them with others. I genuinely enjoy the process of writing, developing my thinking, and receiving feedback from others that itās helped them shift their perspective around something.Ā
But my sense of self hasnāt yet caught up with the āidealā version of me that writes every Monday. I havenāt developed the trust in myself that this will get done. Monday comes around and something else more pressing āneedsā doing. Someone wants a meeting so Iāll move the block in my calendar to Tuesday. And then to Wednesday. And then oh itās too late so Iāll try again next Monday.Ā
Every week, I say this will be the week that once dinner is done, Iāll switch off my laptop, spend the evening reading, doing an hour of yin yoga and relaxing before sleep. But every week, I find myself hunched over my laptop catching up on the work that I said Iād do earlier but didnāt.Ā
This discrepancy between how I want to show up and how I actually show up leads me to create plans that I canāt fulfil, to overextend myself, and to set unrealistic expectations on what I can actually get done in the day. It keeps me further away from my ideals. It means I lose out on doing things that feel deeply fulfilling and meaningful. And, most importantly, it causes me to distrust myself.Ā
Setting unrealistic expectations for myself and not achieving them perpetuates a fragmentation between who I want to be and who I actually am, which in turn reinforces the sense of self that Iām not going to do what I say Iām going to do.
This notion was recently introduced to me by Pete Craig as āmaking wrongā. Making wrong is when we expect X but receive Y. This can happen when we say weāll do something, then donāt do it. Or when we criticise ourselves. Or lie to ourselves. Or when we label something as bad or wrong. Doing this makes the world āwrongā, and our perception of reality becomes warped and disconnected from what we expect or desire.Ā
The idea that there are so many subtle ways that we can make things āwrongā every day highlights that we can reinforce mistrust in not only ourselves but also in others and the world around us.
By making myself āwrongā for not achieving the thing Iād set out to achieve, or for criticising myself for not writing the newsletter every week like Iād planned, Iām creating so much tension for myself and frankly making life much harder than it needs to be.Ā
So instead of placing my energy and focus on creating perfect productivity structures to achieve my goals, Iāve decided to place my energy and focus on being someone I can trust.Ā
What does it mean to develop self-trust?Ā
Fundamentally, building trust in ourselves requires us to create new behaviourĀ patterns. First and foremost, it starts with making things right. What are the ways that weāre currently working against ourselves? What are the ways we can set ourselves up for success?Ā
In the context of the newsletter example, instead of blindly moving the calendar block around all the time and telling myself that I will write every Monday, I sat down and explored whether a weekly cadence is a) something I even want to do; b) something I have the capacity for alongside my other commitments; and c) whether the time Iāve chosen to dedicate to it actually makes sense alongside other pulling factors.Ā
Doing this allowed me to realise that Thursdays are in fact the best days for me to write, as Iām not in a state of getting things done as I am on Mondays, and can drop more easily into a flow with the other activities I have on Thursdays.Ā
But this exploration also brought up an even more important point about the issues inherent within behaviour change. It highlighted that to change our behaviour, we first need to know what drives our behaviour. Behaviour change doesnāt simply happen on a material level. Itās driven by patterns and habits built at various points throughout our lives, often under our conscious awareness.Ā
In order to make meaningful, long-lasting change, we need to be willing to truly look at ourselves, what motivates us, what turns us off, what we value, and critically, where weāre actually at right now and not some disembodied ideal future version of ourselves.
We need to bring all these parts of ourselves into our conscious awareness so that we can work with them and not against them. By doing this, we can form new behaviours and ways of being in the world that come from a place of self-awareness and embodiment. Through this process, we create less tension, make less āwrongā and can be more aligned with who we want to be.Ā
And itās from this place that we can make things right, which in turn develops trust in ourselves. Taking action from an embodied place means weāre more likely to actually do the thing we set out to do and means that the distance between who we are and who we want to be is smaller. Consistently āmaking rightā and showing up in the world how weāve intended teaches our psyche that we are trustworthy and can act with integrity to our word.Ā
So, merely changing my behaviour around the newsletter wasnāt enough. I also had to acknowledge that thereās a part of me that rebels against having fixed constraints and that this drove an avoidance of completing the action of writing every Monday 2-4pm. Iāve had to acknowledge that this rebelling comes from an identity I have of someone who is āfreeā, floating around the world on her own rhythm, happy to let life flow and not be committed.Ā
The consistent avoidance of taking the action perpetuated this identity and led me to mistrust that I would be the person who writes. It helped me realise that simply trying to find the perfect time container wasnāt enough to take the action and build trust. Being aware of this part of myself meant I could work with it, rather than blindly pushing over it.Ā
How can knowing our values help with self-trust?
An important part of knowing what drives our behaviour requires us to know what our values are. Without knowing what we value, we canāt know why weāre doing any of the things we do every day. And without knowing why we do what we do, weāll consistently set unrealistic expectations for ourselves and perpetuate a lack of trust.Ā
Iāve yet to come across a useful framework for systematically identifying our values and tend to work from a more intuitive place of self-awareness (if anyone knows of one, Iād be open to receiving it!).Ā
But a simple framework for understanding the interaction between our values and our behaviour, and how we can use this awareness to build new habits and develop self-trust could be:Ā
Values: Ask yourself, what do you value? What is important to you, and why?Ā
Goals: What goals will help you live in alignment with those values?Ā
Behaviours: What behaviours do you need to embody to reach those goals? Who do you need to be to achieve your goals?Ā
Actions: And this is key: Whatās the smallest possible thing you can do to create that behaviour?
One of my core values is freedom.Ā
One way this value manifests in the world is freedom of physical movement. Itās upsetting to me when I feel physically restricted, in pain, not in control of my body or unable to perform simple actions that I know my body can perform.Ā
Therefore, a goal that helps me to live aligned with this value is strength and mobility training and yoga. Yoga is something Iāve already trained myself in. Itās a habit that exists in my body on a deeper, non-conscious level and I have a deep trust that I will always come back to my yoga practice, and I always do. I can trust myself because I say Iāll do it and I do it. Itās part of my identity.Ā
Strength and mobility training on the other hand is a new behaviour and I donāt yet trust myself to do it. Itās something that Iāve recently started training in, so Iāve had to set up conscious behaviour reward patterns and accountability to complete it. I work with a trainer and I go to the same gym that my husband goes to every day, so Iām accountable to developing consistent behaviour.Ā
In terms of action, the smallest possible thing that I did to get started was set up a discovery session with my trainer. The next smallest possible thing I did was show up. The next smallest possible thing I did was get to the gym the following day. And on and on it went. Now, the smallest possible thing I do is ājust get to the gymā. Nothing more.Ā
Once I start mapping out my week and planning exactly what workout Iām going to do on what day, exactly how long Iāll spend at the gym each day or what podcast episode Iāll listen to, I know Iām setting myself up for failure and creating more tension than I need to. The containers of the physical location of the gym, the program designed by my trainer, and the weekly sessions with him are enough to hold me accountable to the behaviour. All I need to do is remember why Iām doing it, and show up.Ā
Then after an injury, I noticed a pushing starting to creep in. I was telling myself what I āshouldā do. I wasnāt enjoying it. So I went back to my values: does this behaviour still align with my value of freedom? The training was exacerbating my injury and restricting my movement, which meant it was in direct contrast with my value of achieving my goal of physical freedom. I could continue to approach this with: āI should go to the gym and push through as I need to complete my training programā. I had to remember why I was doing it in the first place. This empowered me to shift things and seek new behaviours to reach my goal, such as myofascial release, yin yoga and restructuring my training to build strength in other areas.Ā
Going back to the newsletter example, placing awareness on the value underneath the writing, Iāve been able to identify my goals, behaviours and the smallest possible action I can take to move toward this. Because of the awareness that I donāt currently respond well to big fixed constraints, but that containers are important to me to develop new habits, Iāve committed to spending just 15 minutes free-writing every morning. Reducing this down from the big two-hour block Iād previously ācommittedā to every week means that Iām actually able to succeed.Ā
And because this is achievable, Iām doing it. And this is building self-trust that I will do the thing. Spending 15 minutes exercising the writing muscle means thereās less resistance when it comes to sitting down to write in a bigger time block and I trust that I can do it.Ā
How can we make life even easier for ourselves?Ā
As humans, we make our goals so much less attainable than they need to be. Taking one small action every day toward our goals to live in alignment with our values is much more accessible than we think.Ā
I was recently at a meet-up Iād organised and someone there was struggling with a similar notion around having lots they want to change but feeling stuck. Someone else shared some great advice, which was to start with the smallest possible action, like making your bed every day.Ā
They went on to share how theyād previously struggled with a bout of depression and the thing that set in motion a series of bigger changes in their life was to simply get up and make their bed every single day. And if that was the only thing they did, at least they had done this one thing. Doing this helped plant a seed of trust that they could do what they set themselves up to do.Ā
With this in mind, the minute I find myself setting unrealistic expectations, I stop and ask: is this realistic? Am I actually going to get this done in the way Iām expecting? Is there something I can do to make this even easier for myself?Ā
Some other small things Iāve been doing to make life even easier for myself, which in turn is developing self-trust and keeping me accountable to my values:Ā
When I create a calendar block and do the thing, Iāll put a š„³ in the calendar event, so I can start to celebrate my commitment
Writing for 15-mins every morning, in something as simple as the Notes app on my Mac
Creating the smallest to-do item for a task, rather than a broad ātaskā name e.g. ārecord videos explaining non-linear movement methodā became ārecord just one video describing now non-linear movement can enhance capacity for joyā.
Iāll keep all my notes, which include thoughts and ideas, reflections, meeting notes, and to-doās in the same simple note feed, again in the Notes app on my Mac (I also do my 15-mins free-writing here). I used to over-complicate note-taking and therefore not write down ideas or reflections because it wasnāt in the āperfectā system.Ā
And because itās painful to scroll all the way to the bottom of this big note list, Iāll actually regularly spend time organising these notes into my Notion filing system. (I want to be someone who revisits and reflects on my notes but as I would write them where they would be stored, Iād never bother to go back and revisit them and create make wrong for myself). Now Iām forced to do so as a byproduct of this new system.Ā
Allowing breathing room in my schedule for being human, getting places and eating food.Ā
When committing to completing a task, Iāll tell the other person itāll be completed two days later than I plan to get it done. This gives me breathing room for life to happen and relieves unnecessary pressure.Ā
What about you? If nothing else, whatās the smallest possible action you can take today? And how does that align with your values?