Trust Your Decisions and Build Self-Esteem

When you trust your decisions, your self-esteem will grow. People with poor self-esteem often second-guess themselves and defer to others' opinions. While it's true that there are people who know more than you do on almost every topic, there is one subject on which you are the world's leading expert, and that subject is you.

Making good decisions takes more than book knowledge or understanding the popular point of view. We are all individuals with unique sets of talents, challenges, and experiences, as well as unique sets of goals, likes, and dislikes.  A good decision considers all these things, so the right choice for you can be wrong for others and vice versa.

Trusting yourself to make good decisions is like any other skill set. It takes practice. Here's a story about how following my own judgement against common opinion proved to be right for me, and in the video I'll share some tips I learned to help improve this skill set.

Coming to Trust Your Decisions When Defying Common Wisdom

Last November I decided to adopt one kitten, and I trusted that decision. My senior cat was starting to decline and I didn't want to be left alone. I volunteer for a feline rescue and at an adoption event we hosted, a little face with a big personality caught my eye. As soon as he was old enough to leave his mother, Samwell Tarly became a member of my family.

This was the first time in my 40-plus years of cat parenting that I adopted a single kitten. Common wisdom advises that you get at least two so they have a playmate. I was afraid that two kittens would overwhelm my 19-year-old Nips, and I wasn't sure I was physically or financially capable of dealing with more than one at that time.

Since then, one or another of my fellow volunteers told me every week or so that I should get another kitten for Samwell to play with. It got difficult to rebut my friends politely. They had more experience when you looked at the overall number of cats they had dealt with, but I trusted that my intimate knowledge of my health, my finances, and Nips gave me insight that they couldn't have.

Trust Your Decisions--and Your Gut--to Build Self-Esteem

I wavered in my resolve a few times since November, but I stayed true to my gut and didn't adopt a companion for Sam. I found it fascinating to experience raising a solitary kitten. Nips had no interest in playing with Sammy, so I became his playmate. He was still a baby and needed a lot of love and cuddling, so I carried him around a good part of each day since he didn't have a sibling to snuggle. We now have a bond that is different than I've had with any of my other furry family members, and I love it passionately.

The pandemic brought feelings of loneliness and lack of purpose which prompted me to start fostering kittens. Sammy loved watching and playing with our guests through the gate that kept them safely in their room, but I wouldn't let him in. The first pair of kittens came and went within days of their arrival, and the second as well, but the third pair were different. Samwell wouldn't take no for an answer this time and kept jumping the gate to interact with the little brother and sister rescued from the streets. He made the decision, which I approved, and we adopted Merry and Pippin.

Samwell Tarly is the best big brother. He watches over the babies, grooms them, and teaches them how to behave. He won't eat until they're full and has so much patience when they climb all over him. It makes my heart sing to see the three of them together, and I finally know that my decision to adopt only him last November was the right one for me. When we said goodbye to Nips in July, I was glad that I had Sammy and that we both had the babies to make us smile.

I couldn't be happier with the result of my decision, and I'm proud that I stuck to my guns against popular opinion. Coming to this realization this week made my self-esteem soar and that helped me make some important decisions that I was waffling over. I'm a typical Libra and I am not great at making decisions quickly, but I'm getting better at making them independently. If you have trouble trusting your decisions, I hope the video will give you some ideas about how to build this important characteristic of healthy self-esteem.

How comfortable are you in trusting your decisions? Share your story in the comments and tell our community what you've learned about trusting yourself.