Can you trust yourself enough not to fear failure?

People (never me) often speak of courage as a leap — as a dramatic crossing from the known into the unknown.

It's our favourite metaphor. It's also the number one frustration members have: I'm trying to work up the courage for the leap but I can't.

I always say, and I say today again: it is not a leap. Follow the path, use the resources, and it is just a step.

Do I notice ay difference between members who make the changes necessary to center around their values, passions and talents, and those who don't?

Yes of course.

And it is not circumstance.

It is cultivating the ability to trust ourselves.

Before any outward leap, there is an inner shift: the decision to trust ourselves, our experiences, our likes and dislikes, our truth, and to discount external systems of merit.

Without this first, almost invisible step, risk-taking becomes brittle, performative, and unsustainable. True courage, the kind that changes lives from within, is rooted in self-trust.

Eastern philosophy has long understood this quiet necessity. In the Tao Te Ching, Laozi writes,

“He who conquers others is strong; he who conquers himself is mighty.”

The conquest he refers to is not a violent act but a deep attunement to the self — a willingness to listen inwardly and believe what we hear.

In psychology, the concept of self-trust is foundational too, though often discussed in fragments: self-efficacy (Bandura), attachment theory (Bowlby), and internal locus of control (Rotter) all point to the same central truth. Those who believe they can navigate uncertainty are those who dare to move toward it.

I offer some ways now to assess your current levels of self-trust and increase them.