People Who Know How To Trust Without Getting Played Usually Have These 5 Distinctive Personality Traits
Mert Coşkun | Pexels Do you find it hard to trust people? Have you been hurt in the past, and you’re now afraid to let other people get close to you? I get it. Because I’ve been there. In fact, I spent the better part of my life not trusting other people.
I was always waiting for the other shoe to drop. I was waiting to be hurt by others like I had been hurt in the past. My fear was so intense that my ego would fiercely fight people when they tried to get close to me. I would find ways to sneakily sabotage the connections in my life, and I would distrust friends who had the best of intentions for me. In retrospect, it’s sad to think about because I exerted so much energy in this place of being perpetually guarded.
Researcher and author Brené Brown has called shame a "200-pound shield" that you carry around. I would say the same thing for distrusting others or having trust issues. Yes, distrust may keep you somewhat protected from potential attacks, but it is exhausting to carry around with you 24/7. In the last few years of my life, I have experienced the deepest and most fulfilling relationships (personal, professional, and romantic) of my life thus far. And I know that I wouldn’t have gotten to this place if I hadn’t first worked on my relationship with trust.
I would love to share with you the most significant things that have moved the needle for me in cultivating my ability to trust other people without getting played — the exact things that I wish I could have shared with myself ten or twenty years ago.
People who know how to trust without getting played usually have these 5 distinctive personality traits:
1. They're loyal to themselves first
It is easy to distrust others when you have repeatedly broken your trust in yourself. Do you tell yourself you’re going to stop going for a certain type of partner, and yet you find yourself dating a carbon copy of them anyway? Do you say that you’re going to start making your body and health a priority, and yet you’re pounding coffee, alcohol, and processed foods daily?
Did you promise yourself a vacation, and then you ended up skipping it to do just a bit more work? Do you tend to skip rest, relaxation, or self-acknowledgment in general? If you chronically break your promises to yourself, you will find it difficult to trust the words of others. Make your word good in your own life first, and you will magically start to see this trend start to reverse in your relationships with other people.
2. They accept themselves
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The only things that you fear others will make wrong about you are the things that you already make wrong about you. Take out a fresh piece of paper. At the top, write "Things that I dislike about myself." Then, write out the first 10-50 things that come to you. Free flow. Let it all come out.
Then, highlight/underline/put a star next to the top five things that you find yourself criticizing most frequently about yourself. Then, figure out what the healthy, reality-based, self-compassionate replacement thought is for that negative belief, and strap it to your metaphorical shield for the next few weeks.
Again, as if by magic, the more you start loving and accepting parts of yourself, the more other people in your life will also start to love and accept those things. And if one of the main reasons that you kept people at arm's distance up until this point in your life was being secretly afraid of the negative judgment of others, you will now be better prepared for the rare people who might try to shoot some arrows at you.
3. They're trustworthy
Defenses often end up creating the exact thing that they most fear. For example, if you’re terrified of people leaving you, you’re highly likely to leave them first. You think you’re protecting yourself, but in reality, you are just guaranteeing the exact outcome you feared most.
Studies found that when people are terrified of being left, they often push others away first as a defense mechanism, which ironically makes the abandonment they feared actually happen, and it ends up being a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Watch how you tend to sabotage your relationships, name that defense mechanism to a close friend, therapist, or confidante, and then don’t use that escape hatch the next time you want to go against your word. By being more trustworthy in your relationships with others, you will begin to believe that others are more trustworthy too.
4. They put down roots
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In modern times, it’s socially acceptable (and even seen as desirable) to be completely "free," with no ties to others. Live the nomadic lifestyle by working from your laptop and changing countries whenever you feel like it.
Ultimately, this need to remain free and have no constraints feels lifeless and dead. It goes against our very nature as a social species. My recommendation: Be in one place. Remain in relationships over longer periods of time. Stick to a career path for years. Stretch out your timeline and allow yourself to make plans for the future.
People who are unwilling to trust in others (or the world, or themselves) have a challenging time planning for the future because they don’t trust that a) it will be good, or b) that it will exist. So counteract this mindset by allowing yourself to make plans for the future and build longer-term commitments.
Buy concert tickets to that thing in a few months and ask your partner if they would like to go with you. Plan a vacation several weeks out and put the deposit down on the place you’ll be staying.
Join a men’s group or women’s group and remain in it for a full year or more. Start going to the gym with a weekly gym buddy and see where it takes you. Put down roots. It will serve your growing sense of trust well.
5. They're willing to take a chance
Ernest Hemingway once said, “The best way to find out if you can trust anybody is to trust them.” A dancer can only be caught in the air if she trusts her partner enough to jump. The businessman can only prove his efficacy if you decide to trust in his ability to provide the desired outcome you want from him.
Trust is defined as being willing to be vulnerable with someone based on the hope that they'll come through for you. Studies show that trust only starts when someone takes that first risk, because you can't prove you're trustworthy until someone gives you the chance.
Your lover can only love in you what you trust them enough to show them. Leap. Love. Be fully you. Deploy the courage you need to, and your ability to trust people will come with time.
Jordan Gray is a five-time Amazon best-selling author, public speaker, and relationship coach with more than a decade of practice. His work has been featured in The New York Times, BBC, Forbes, The Huffington Post, Women's Health, and The Good Men Project, among countless others.
