Trust isn’t owed, it is earned. And as such, trust can easily be broken and/or lost. Whether one is earning trust, or repairing broken and/or lost trust, it is important to be willing to take personal risks and highlight the value and care one has for the gaining or repairing of trust.
How to earn trust
First and foremost – forget all the grand gestures. Trust isn’t created with a one big splash, it needs to be nurtured and maintained using small but consistent actions.
Second, focus on showing behavior that demonstrate how you value the relationship you’re trying to build trust in, show integrity, and maintain benevolence – especially after conflict.
Building trust requires accountability and consistency in all actions, and making sure the other individual feels emotionally (and preferably physically and economically) safe in your presence is important.
But remember, that building trust isn’t about being perfect. It’s about having the imperfect and difficult moments together, while demonstrating the ability to be accountable and consistent in all your actions – all the while showing the other person that even when there is conflict they are still save around you.
Examples of actions
Being generally benevolent, showing integrity in all your actions, demonstrating how you value the relationship and ensuring that the other person feels safe sounds easy enough.
But quite a lot of us tend to think that expressing these actions with verbal behavior is enough, that other people should understand our intentions from our words and “trust” that those words are spoken from a genuine place.
What we all need to learn, is to constantly express these actions through our non-verbal behavior.
- Make sure your verbal and non-verbal behavior matches.
It doesn’t matter what you say, if your non-verbal beahvior doesn’t match your words. Make sure that you choose your words wisely, so that your non-verbal behavior is always aligned with your words.
This means making sure that you never over-promise or under-deliver from what you verbally said your actions would show.
This also means understanding that nobody is perfect, and that sometimes accidents can happen – so it is important to learn how to respond when you’re faced with the consequences of not delivering on your promises.
- Admit your mistakes.
When shit hits the fan – and it will – how you handle that situations will have more weight on the building or repairing of trust, than any other neutral or even positive interaction will ever have.
Being able to acknowledge one’s mistakes openly, to be able to take accountability and responsibility without putting the blame on someone else or trying to get away from it in some manner is imperative.
Don’t shy away from admitting your mistakes and apologizing from them, but make sure to never just voice your apology, show it in action.
- Learn effective communication methods.
- Use active listening.
- Practice empathy.
- Accept influence from the other person.
Showing an apology in action can most easily be done by actively listening to how your actions have hurt the other person, showing that you’ve internalized their reasoning and intergrated it with your own way of thinking, and make sure that you list out what behavior you intend to correct and how you will correct it to make sure the same mistake doesn’t happen again.
Keep all verbal behavior clear and transparent. Be consistent, and make sure that your words state what you can or cannot commit to, without putting blame or pressure on someone else, nor trying to dodge the blame yourself.
It’s good to practice active listening and focus on the other person, their point of view, and show empathy for their standpoint – without going against your own boundaries.
Being able to understand the other person’s concerns, hopes and ideas is important, as it shows you’re not just engaging in the conversation to check a bow or to win against the other person, but are actively taking their words into account and assimilating to your own ideals.
- Take time to decide on decisions and actions.
Thoughtless decision-making is key for inconsistency, over-promising or even undermining of own actions.
After taking your time to really listening to the other person, understanding their point of view, and intergrating it into your own, there is no need to jump into action.
Be transparent about your own wishes to be accountable for your own actions, and communicate how you intend to use what you’ve learned to establish changed actions, or what you need to do in order to fully incorporate the new information.
- Express gratitude
Saying “thank you” sounds cheap, but being grateful and showing appreciation for the other person and their willingness to work with you towards building trust is important.
Remember that trust isn’t a solo venture, it’s built between two willing participants. Make sure your gratitude shows humility and respect, and that it is spoken from the heart.
And make sure that the gratitude is detailed. A “thank you” isn’t worth much but, “thank you for taking time and explaining what I did wrong, and talking through with me how I can rectify my behavior” tells the other person that you appreciate them, their time, and the effort spent in building trust between the two of you.
- Most importantly: Act without expecting validation.
When building trust we often tend to overly focus on the end result. This comes forth as pushing or demanding that trust is built, and even sets some of us up to show behavior where we demand trust on our terms – an action that has the exact opposite intended effect.
It’s important when building or repairing trust, to not expect that the other person will validate your efforts, answer in the same manner, or even ever allow for trust to be built between the two of you ever again.
Remember that consistency is key, your actions today will be remembered tomorrow, and not only by the person the actions are directed towards, but by everybody else as well.