What Does It Mean to Trust Yourself? 'Joyologist' Tricia Huffman Walks Us Through Why It's So Critical
written by Stacey Lindsay
It can sound like Utopia: the idea that you must trust yourself and lead a life of integrity. But what does it mean to listen to your gut with clarity and conviction? Why is this so important? And ultimately (and perhaps most importantly), how do you do it?
Enter letting go of the “shoulds"—one of the compelling ideas explored by Tricia Huffman. In her new book, aptly named F the Shoulds. Do the Wants: Gets Clear on Who You Are, What You Want, and Why You Want It, the life coach and self-proclaimed “joyologist” posits that self-trust holds the key to deep personal meaning. As Tricia tells us, when we stop “outsourcing” our decisions to the outside world, we find an unparalleled clarity. “Your energy is different,” she says, “and who you are in the world is different.”
Whether you’re at peace with your life, looking to make giant changes, or simply leaning into the unknown, Tricia’s counsel underscores a truth: Listening to your inner knowing isn’t merely a gift; it is requisite for an authentic life.
Chatting with Tricia Huffman
So many of us still feel we should do things a certain way. How does this thinking and following the "shoulds" hurt us?
It's happening unconsciously, most of the time. When we follow the shoulds, we're not living our life. We're outsourcing our life choices. It makes us steal joy from ourselves. It makes us feel terrible about ourselves. That's one of the biggest things we don't realize is happening: We're feeling all this shame.
The shoulds are tied to so many things, shame being one of the biggest. We can hold shame for the most minuscule things. Then we feel we are not right, judge ourselves, or think something is wrong with ourselves. Yet, this is not our genuine opinion of ourselves most often. We're just living through all these filters and layers of shoulds.
You write that "no one can possibly know you better than you," which is a beautiful reminder. Talk to us about that.
You are the authority and the only authority on your life. We are constantly growing, shifting, evolving, and learning daily in these small ways, and we're continually changing and figuring out what we want. But often, we look towards others, even the experts and people we respect, on what we should be doing. We act as if they know better. It's important to know that you can have so much respect for someone and believe in what they say, but their insight may only sometimes be the right thing for you. We lose sight of that.
You are the expert on you. You are the authority on you. And no one can know you better than you.
Do you find this work to be gendered?
It applies across the board, but it impacts women more. But on some human level, we all experience this. The reality is there are more conditions put on women—how we should mother, look, act, or whatever it may be. Of course, it is a weightier thing put on women because that is what society has done. It is getting better, but it still exists.
What does it mean to trust yourself?
When looking at trust, the first thing is listening. Are you really listening to yourself? Are you listening to yourself and not all the shoulds you collected? To trust yourself means to listen to those inner pullings within you. Sometimes, that means having to make difficult choices. It can mean making uncomfortable choices for yourself. Truthfully, most of the time, when I listen to myself and trust myself deeply, it's like, Oh, really? I know I must say no to that. This may not be for me anymore.
Because as you write, your intuition will sometimes piss you off.
Yes! You may love a person, but they're draining you, so you may need to pull back. Or you may want something, and you don't have the capacity for it, so you have to make choices in other areas. So, trusting yourself is a practice of deep listening. I'm always about giving yourself compassion in all of this.
Life inevitably throws us curveballs. How do we maintain conviction when things get challenging or the unexpected happens?
One of the best practices is to pay deep attention to how you feel. Take a minute and consider:
How does this feel for me? How did it feel to do this? Let yourself explore. Allow yourself to daydream about it. You may not want to make choices A or B just yet, but consider how these things feel. See it all as an experiment.
It is important to remember that life is a big adventure. Too often, people are afraid to try new things, make big decisions, and listen to themselves because they worry they'll make the wrong decision. But you will never know unless you start exploring and feeling things out. You can do this by making small changes and shifts.
And again, this can be small. Say you're in a rut with moving your body. Try Pilates a few times and think, How does this feel? How did this make my body feel? Do I want to try walking or something different? So listen and pay attention.
You liken this work to "collecting data." What do you mean, and why is this important?
This idea of collecting data is so helpful because we don't live in boxes. I'm saying 'trust yourself' and 'you are the authority of your life' with the understanding that we will still search for answers and feedback outside of ourselves. I love to ask people's opinions. I love to research things. I love to see what this person's doing. Information is important. But again, it is up to me to figure out what is suitable for me and how I want to use that information. I call this collecting data. You can collect data even when you're calling friends to ask for their advice. This means you're not outsourcing your decisions and not following the shoulds. Instead, you're collecting information while at the head of the table. Take the bits and pieces and make it work for you.
What is the broader message of your work and book that you hope people take away?
People may see the title or hear me talk about this, they may think this is selfish or they can't just do what they want. But the reality of this work is that it's really being honest with yourself about what you're doing and why. And with some of those things you're doing that feel like shoulds, this is about changing your relationship to all of it. You then realize This is why I want to do this thing. So this is all about having deep integrity in this life from a real honest place. You're not doing something out of resentment, guilt, or shame. You're living in integrity and the present. From that, you can access joy and be fully alive.
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You can learn more about Tricia at yourjoyologist.com. Interview by Stacey Lindsay conducted exclusively for Liberty Road.
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