If you've got trust issues, overcome them with these 11 simple solutions

Watch your trust issues disappear over time when you do these things.

A woman with blonde hair wearing a burgundy scarf and a dark coat stands outdoors, looking towards someone facing her whose back is partially visible. She has her hand behind her ear and a thoughtful expression on her face. The background is slightly blurred.

If you think or know that you have issues surrounding trust, what can you do about it? How can you overcome them and trust people again? The following tips can really help, especially when used together.

1. Learn How Trust Is Earned/Given

A couple stands intimately close on a sunny day by a river, with city buildings and a bridge in the background. The woman, wearing a black leather jacket, gazes down while holding the man's chest. The man, in a black coat, leans in with a serious expression.

Trust is not something you should give blindly. It has to be earned.

One of the keys to overcoming issues with trust is to understand when and why a little bit of trust has been earned by an individual.

You have to identify instances in which a person has shown trustworthy qualities.

By recognizing each time a person does something to earn your trust, you alter the opinion you have of that person.

Your preconceived ideas about the untrustworthiness of a person is repeatedly challenged until trust begins to win out over mistrust.

2. Consider People Or Entities Separately To One Another

A man and a woman are sitting back-to-back in an outdoor setting. The man is wearing a plaid shirt and looking to the left. The woman, with short blonde hair and a sleeveless top, is looking to the right with a slightly serious expression. Both appear deep in thought.

A person with trust issues will often paint everybody and everything with the same brush.

This means that if one person does something (or has done something) to betray your trust, it taints your view of everybody else.

This is why it is important to treat each person or organization separately.

Give each person an ‘account’ within your mind where you hold your trust of them.

As in the previous point, add to a person’s trust balance every time they show that they can be trusted.

If someone betrays your trust, empty or reduce that person’s account, but only theirs. Keep the other accounts unchanged.

Similarly, if someone from your past broke a promise or betrayed you in some other way, don’t assume that people in your present or future will do the same.

This is especially relevant to romantic relationships where you were hurt by an ex.

Don’t punish current or future partners for crimes committed against you by your ex. They are completely different people.

3. Base Your Trust On Evidence, Not Fantasy

A man and a woman stand close to each other in an intimate moment. The man, wearing a light blue shirt, looks down thoughtfully. The blond-haired woman looks directly at the camera with a serious expression. They are indoors with a bookshelf in the background.

Remember the point from the previous section about overthinking?

Well, you have to try not to allow the fantasy drama that is playing inside your head to influence the confidence and belief you have in someone.

If you have actual evidence that casts doubt on their trustworthiness, then you can act on it.

But if your suspicions are based on nothing other than your imagination, you need to push against it.

This comes back to points #1 and #2 and how you should identify things that show a person can be trusted and base your trust in them on those things alone.

4. Learn Not To Project Your Mistrust Onto Others

A woman with long dark hair and wearing glasses holds her forehead with a hand, appearing stressed or worried. She has a serious expression and is dressed in a light-colored blazer. The background is blurred.

Perhaps you find it difficult to trust other people because you don’t trust yourself.

Maybe you don’t see yourself as a trustworthy individual.

In this case, it can be quite easy to project your belief that you cannot be trusted onto those around you.

This comes back to your overactive imagination. If you question how you would act in a given situation, you can easily assume that another person is equally questionable.

This is especially relevant to people who lie or cheat and who then find it difficult to trust others. They simply believe that if they are capable of doing such things, everyone else is too.

5. Identify And Mitigate Situations That Cause Mistrust

A black and white photo shows a man with tousled hair and a beard, embracing a woman from behind. The man's expression appears contemplative, while the woman, facing away, rests her head on his shoulder. The background is a blurred, serene outdoor setting.

Do you find that your trust issues only become a serious problem in certain situations?

Perhaps your partner is away on business. Or maybe your friend turns down an invitation to meet up.

It’s important to identify these or other situations that set off your trust alarms.

If you know when feelings of mistrust are most likely to arise, you can find ways to ease them.

The best method is to simply distract yourself with something else that can fully engage your concentration.

If you are busy thinking about a thing that you are doing, you’ll have no time to worry about whether a certain someone is betraying you.

You’ll effectively prevent that imagination of yours from running riot because your mind is taken up elsewhere.

6. Have Faith In People – But Start Small

A young woman with long, flowing red hair stands outdoors against a blurred background of dark foliage. She wears a light brown sleeveless top and looks off to the side with a thoughtful expression.

If you are someone who finds it difficult to trust anyone else with the things you are currently responsible for, you can’t simply flick a switch and change that.

You can start to regain faith in other people if you start small, and try not to have major expectations.

Give people the opportunity to take on little tasks that won’t completely ruin your life if they don’t get done as perfectly as you might have done them.

Get your partner to bathe the kid/s and put them to bed X number of nights a week.

Assign one of your less-important tasks to a subordinate at work, so they’re now responsible for taking care of it.

Often, if we give people small chances to be awesome, and then acknowledge their awesomeness when they do well, they’ll be more eager to take on greater roles in the future… and do those well too.

7. Accept Some Trust-Breaking As Inevitable

A woman and man stand close together in a barren, brown field. The woman, with light brown hair and a striped scarf, gazes forward with a serious expression. The man, wearing a dark coat, stands slightly behind her, looking down. Both appear contemplative.

The people in our lives are as flawed as we are, and it’s more than likely that they will hurt us at some point.

These hurts may not be intentional. It may just be a momentary poor decision on their part.

But if you’re a person with trust issues, that may reinforce your negative beliefs, because you have the unrealistic expectation that those who love you will never hurt you or betray your trust.

That’s simply not true. Small hurts are inevitable.

They will also heal.

This is where that ‘trust bank account’ from point #2 comes in handy. When a person does something that breaks your trust, you can dock them some trust points.

If the breach of trust was small, you just take a little bit out.

Of course, if it was large, you make a larger withdrawal or close their account permanently.

And if the betrayals are frequent, you might find that their account runs low.

But, for the most part, you’ll probably find that people do things that increase their trust account more often than they do things to earn penalties.

In other words, they may hurt you, but they will put things right.

8. Reward Yourself For Showing Trust

A young woman with long brown hair is leaning against a wall and looking into the distance. She is wearing a straw hat with a blue ribbon and has a thoughtful expression on her face.

Positive reinforcement is a powerful tool when it comes to behavioral change. And that includes how you think and act toward someone.

So, each time you put your trust in someone, reward yourself in some way.

That could simply involve a congratulatory, though imaginary, pat on the back for showing the courage to trust someone.

Or it could involve a tub of your favorite ice cream or tickets to a concert.

The more you do this, the greater the positive association you will form around trusting other people.

9. Recognize When You Are Self-Sabotaging

A woman with long brown hair sits on a couch looking thoughtful and distant, with her hand resting on her cheek. Behind her, a man with short gray hair, dressed in blue, sits looking pensive, holding a TV remote. Both appear to be in a domestic setting.

Remember those self-fulfilling prophecies we spoke about earlier? Well, it’s vitally important that you recognize when they are happening.

It’s important because if you can break the cycle and change the patterns of behavior that lead to self-sabotage, you prevent the hurt that comes with it.

And when that hurt is partly made up of broken trust, you avoid reinforcing the trust issues you already have.

You can make your relationships healthier and allow the good things to be reinforced instead of the bad.

10. Reverse The Roles

A couple sits on the edge of a bed in a dimly lit room. The woman on the left has her hand on her forehead, looking tired or frustrated. The man on the right looks away with a thoughtful or concerned expression. Both appear to be in a serious discussion or conflict.

Let’s assume that you do act in some of the paranoid ways described at the very start of this article.

Maybe you spy on your partner.

If your roles were reversed, how would you feel about your partner behaving that way toward you?

Would you feel betrayed?

Would you be upset at their flagrant lack of trust in you when you’d done nothing to earn their suspicion?

Would you feel that they were being disrespectful and controlling?

Yes, you want to avoid getting hurt again, but take care that in doing so, you don’t become the person who hurt you.

11. Build Your Self-Esteem

A woman in a gray sports bra and neon orange shorts sits by the water under a bridge. She has braided hair and gazes thoughtfully into the distance. The city skyline and part of the bridge's structure are visible in the background.

Earlier on we talked about the role self-esteem has in being able to trust other people.

When you like who you are, you perceive fewer external threats. And one of those threats is the betrayal of your trust.

If you have a favorable attitude toward yourself, you see fewer reasons why another person would wish to hurt you.

And even if they do hurt you – on purpose of by mistake – you are more resilient and feel less of a crushing blow from their actions.

So by working on your self-esteem, you help get over your trust issues at the same time.

Still not sure how to get over your trust issues? Talking to someone can really help you to handle whatever life throws at you. It’s a great way to get your thoughts and your worries out of your head so you can work through them.

A therapist is often the best person you can talk to. Why? Because they are trained to help people in situations like yours. They can help you to explore the root cause(s) of your trust issues and work with you to gradually allow you to put your trust in people again.