Who do you trust?

Over the past week in the UK there has been a major financial new story. A leading bank, Northern Rock, asked the Bank of England for a loan, to help resolve a “cash flow problem”. Since then, there have been constant queues outside the banks branches as anxious savers have been withdrawing their money.

As bank officials, government ministers and the Bank of England have given assurances that “there is nothing to worry about”, “that everyones money is safe” – the queues got longer. Would you trust a politician who says there is nothing to worry about! Billions of pounds have been withdrawn, and its taken a major Government underwriting of the bank to stop the panic.

Everyday we put our trust in others, often unconsciously. If we use public transport, we trust the skills of the drivers or pilot – we don’t individually check them out. We constantly seek the advice, and sometimes interventions, of professionals like doctors or lawyers.

We also trust the advice of others where there is no evidence that their interventions will work – such as alternative medicines. On the internet it is very easy to find information that is presented in a “professional” way and trust it – whilst the author could be a fourteen year old doing a school project!

Do we trust ourselves? Self confidence is all about self trust. It is quite amazing how fickle our trust in others can be, and on how we can base trust on rather flimsy information. Why do we give ourselves a much harder time? Often we ignore hard evidence that we can do something – in favor of the opinions of others who have no expertise in this area.

Learn to trust yourself, give yourself credit for the things you can do. Sometimes you need reminders of what you can/have done to enable that feeling of trust to spread. If you look at the basis on which you sometimes trust others, it can make it easier to trust yourself.