Trustworthy People Inspire Us To Trust Others

Reliable people inspire us to trust others. They create a safe path for us to walk on. They light up our darkness. Trustworthy people make us feel like we can face uncertainty with confidence because we know we can rely on them, just as we could in the past.

Reliable people don’t just show their trustworthiness with big gestures. They also do this in the little things. In fact, those small gestures are much more valuable than you may think.

Trustworthy people don’t lie to justify themselves

Think about someone you may know who always cancels you and the plans you make together. Sometimes he even cancels when you’re already on the road. He also shows in other ways that he can’t really be trusted. A friend should never be the source of this kind of insecurity. When he goes back on promises and plans, he always finds an excuse to justify why.

Little excuses that all add up to create something devastating: a lack of trust. And a lack of trust kills relationships. It fills us with uncertainty and doubt. Insecurity is the silent killer of many otherwise healthy relationships.

It’s perfectly normal not to feel the need to hang out with these types of people. We don’t have to be ashamed of this, and it would be strange if we always got along with everyone. In some ways the solution seems simple. If I don’t need something, I run away from it because I don’t want to get myself involved in it. However, some people have such a strong need to please everyone that they ignore their instincts.

Maybe they know deep down that something is going wrong in their lives. That something isn’t working as it should. Try thinking about a time in your life when you did something to please someone else. This probably made you feel very uncomfortable, as if you were ‘denying’ yourself.

However, in relation to people who are important to us, we need to think about how trustworthy we are to them. We have to think about whether we really want to be trustworthy or whether it’s actually something that isn’t that important to us.

Make sure your words mean something if you want to be trustworthy

Think about a time when you didn’t want to do something. And instead of telling the truth, you came up with an excuse so you didn’t have to. Or at other times when you made an appointment that you then failed to keep. Most likely you felt shame. Maybe you even felt regret.

But… regret of what? The healthiest thing would be to regret giving your word when you weren’t sure you could keep your word. Sometimes we agree to small things without objectively evaluating whether we can really stick to them. The truth is that if something is really important to us, we do it with the best of intentions.

In that sense, we should be aware that breaking promises can be hugely damaging to a relationship. Trust and security are the foundation of a good relationship. If I don’t trust someone and don’t feel safe next to them, I won’t get much out of this relationship. The relationship will not allow me to be myself.

Evaluating your appointments is a good start

If I break my promises systematically, I make it very difficult for others to trust me.

That said, of course there will be times when I can’t keep up with my commitments. Sometimes trustworthy people have to put off their promises.  They are not perfect either. Sometimes unforeseen events arise and we have to deal with them first.

What we mean, however, is to make sure that you don’t systematically break your promises without any real justification.

We have the right not to commit ourselves to everything and everyone. We have the right not to devote ourselves to things we do not want to devote ourselves to. Or things we know we can’t keep. It is our right to be authentic and honest with others and ourselves. However, it is also important to recognize the impact of our words.

This way of thinking will make it easier for us to look closely at our relationships and why we behave the way we behave. Once we understand that our word, however trivial it may seem, has value to ourselves and to others, then we will give it the importance it deserves. Hopefully in the future we will think more carefully before we give our word.