What does it mean to trust someone? For many of us, it’s about feeling safe and enjoying an honest relationship with someone who’s dependable.

You may not always know if you trust someone, but you definitely know when you don’t.

• Trust is important because it helps us navigate through life
• Start with trusting yourself
• Surround yourself with people you trust
• Build trust with your employment consultant
• An employment services provider you can trust

Why is trust important?

Creating trusting relationships helps us live a happy and meaningful life that’s full of connection. This is what we’re wired to crave as humans.

At its core, trust makes us feel safe. When we feel safe, and respected, we can be surer of our actions and relationships. This gives us confidence and helps us make better decisions. Confident decision-making helps us carve out our desired path in life which also makes us happy.

1. Who can you trust if you don’t trust yourself?

We all make rushed or misguided decisions from time-to-time. But confidence in the choices we make gives us faith in our ability to forge our own path. This is fundamental in building our self-esteem.

Mindfulness can help us build this trust in our decision-making. It helps us find clarity amongst jumbled thoughts and gets us in touch with our gut instinct. Consider these tips if you’d like to stay mindful:

• Take your time when making a decision – try sitting with it or sleeping on it.
• Write it down. List the pros and cons.
• Minimise distractions when you’re making decisions, so you can tune into your thoughts and feelings.
• Use The Worry Tree to help move through any anxiety that comes up for you. Find out more.

Asking yourself questions is another useful way to understand whether the path
you’re taking is a good one.

• Will my future-self thank me for this?
• How would I feel if I were to describe this choice to someone I love?
• Does this direction fit with my values?
• Will this help me achieve my goals?

2. Surround yourself with people you trust

Author, Jim Rohn, believes you’re the average of the five people you spend the most time with. Now, that’s food for thought. How would the five most significant people in your life stack up if you were to ask yourself:

• Are those people good?
• Are they dependable?
• Can I trust them?

It’s important we trust the people that we spend our lives with, and often that doesn’t come easy. Trust is something we earn, it’s not something that’s inherently built into every personal and professional relationship.

Useful ways of figuring out whether you trust someone or not, is to spend time with them and ask questions. It’s worth remembering that a strong indicator of a person’s future trustworthiness is their past actions. Here are some questions you might want to ask:

• Does this person have the same values that I live by?
• Do they strive to do the right thing?
• What’s their history or track record?
• What does trust mean to them?

Try not to make snap judgements about people. None of us are perfect. With the exception of people who are out to harm us, sometimes we need to take time get to know someone before we know whether we can trust them.

If you aren’t able to trust the people around you, and need to talk to someone, reach out to an expert. You could try:

Relationships Australia – 1300 364 277
Lifeline – 13 11 14

3. Trusting your employment consultant

Trusting your employment consultant is critical when getting help to find the right job or training. Not only does trust make you feel like you’re in safe hands, it’s also energising. It motivates you to go to appointments, write that resume and apply for jobs.

When you first meet your consultant, they may ask all the questions. We recommend that you ask some too. Here are some questions that will help you get a good picture of their trustworthiness:

• Why do you work in employment services?
• Do you enjoy your job?
• What’s important to you?
• How do I know I can trust you?

It’s unlikely that any program we sign up to, or person we meet, are exactly how we’d want them to be. But that doesn’t mean that they’re unhelpful and not to be trusted. Rest assured though, if you don’t feel like your Disability Employment Services Provider is the right fit for you, you can change providers up to five times.

Katrina, one of our jobseekers from San Remo built a strong relationship with her employment consultant. This is what she said, “My employment consultant is very understanding and able to facilitate trust and empathy.”

Want to know more on how our employment consultants build trust? It all starts with listening and respect, so we can tailor the right support for your needs. Here are some real stories that show how we genuinely care and work to build trusted, successful relationships with our jobseekers:

• Callan’s story
• Jacinta’s story
• Cameron’s story

Building trust in CoAct

We all need to earn trust. These are things we find useful to know if you want to trust an employment services provider.

• Are they a not-for-profit?
  The whole CoAct network is which means we’re focused on helping you over making money.
• What are their values?
  CoAct’s values include Leadership, Collaboration, Creativity, Respect and Integrity. We don’t tolerate any behaviour that compromises these.
• What’s their approach?
  We start with you. By listening, we strive to understand your goals, health condition, skills and experience. We want to know what’s important to you, and why.

Trust in your job and employer

If you aren’t yet sold on the importance of trust, take a look at the evidence. Compared with people at low-trust organisations, people at high-trust organisations report 74% less stress, 50% higher productivity and 29% more satisfaction with their lives.

If you’d like to talk to us about Disability Employment Services, and finding an employer you can trust, call us on 1800 226 228 or register online.

References
The Neuroscience of Trust