How To Build Trust In & Strengthen Your Relationship

Trust, at its core, is psychological safety and confidence in those around you. And once you learn how to build trust in a relationship, it's imperative that you know how to keep it.

While there are big events that happen in relationships that can wipe out trust, it's not love that's the super glue that holds us together — it's our trust in others.

How can you deepen the trust in all of your relationships?

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Without the ability to have faith in others, we live with a lot of uncertainty and stress.

While Mother Nature can hit us with a level 5 hurricane, we can typically see it coming. But secrets in a relationship (such as affairs) can level trust like an earthquake.

All these little moments — the unkind word or intention, a disingenuous comment, and a tone of contempt — all these smaller things deplete our belief in ourselves and those around us.

What is the real problem?

You might think these huge deals are the real problem in creating a trust-based relationship. And, yes they do harm trust in a huge way.

But, what if they aren’t the real thing that typically creates a systemic loss of faith in the integrity of others?

Let’s say that the building blocks of trust come in much smaller packages.

The elements of how we argue, disagree, question, how we listen, and negotiate differences ultimately make a more significant impact on the overall health of our relationships.

These seemingly small things happen multiple times daily, and they sow the seeds of loneliness and disconnection, which lead to far more critical breaks in trust.

The longer these smaller trust-breaking behaviors, attitudes, and disrespect go on, the more inevitable a really big trust-breaking situation becomes.

Take a moment and think about a relationship (it can be personal or work-related). Consider a time you lost faith in the relationship.

How did you feel about being around that person? Ask yourself to remember how you treated them? Maybe aways keeping them at an arms length?

What a lack of trust does is shut us down. We tend to hunker down in the face of distrust, to protect ourselves. Self-protection doesn’t leave a lot of room for innovation, joy, or confidence.

In a healthy relationship, trust is the foundation for growth, creativity, and innovation.

People who don’t feel confident in others, don’t share or collaborate — they don’t explore ideas, or have passionate conversations that lead to new learning.

They drift apart and stagnate. Having trust is so crucial to the success of a family, an organization, or a community that it begs to be addressed.

How do you build trust and, even more importantly, how do you rebuild it? Here are the 9 steps to take.

1. Create positive relationships

Being positive in relationships is not about superficial niceness or perfection.

Positive relationships are healthy relationships in which people feel heard, understood, liked, and appreciated.

It’s basic Psychology 101 — we like people who like us. This is just a simple truth.

So, ask yourself, how do you show people that you enjoy or value them? How do you know when people enjoy or appreciate you?

Pay attention to what behaviors demonstrate "liking". Maybe we smile at them with genuine warmth or ask questions that show our interest in what’s happening in their lives.

We tend to value their opinions, even if we disagree, and we encourage them in their endeavors.

In our busy world, it is easy to lose track of another person’s humanness, so positivity and keeping an open mind towards someone’s ideas, interests, and passions helps people feel open and receptive toward you in return.

2. Allow for differences

We often get very clear about our own perspective and we can sit pretty proudly in our rightness and righteousness. But, our sense of being right can shut down other people.

Some of the smartest and most influential people encourage differing perspectives because they understand that they can’t see all sides of any situation and they will make the best decisions if they ask for other points of view.

When you're learning how to build trust, you have to learn how to listen — often to things that you might not agree with. There is a vast difference between listening to understand versus listening for ammo.

​3. Listen to listen

For many, the idea of listening equals agreement, but I want to challenge that idea.

Listening and really hearing another person doesn’t equal agreement, it equals working to understand another perspective. We do not have to agree or change our perspective to truly listen to another.

What is true, though, is that people will feel trust in you if they can question your ideas or passionately discuss differences without being attacked or punished for their perspective.

I recently had a conversation with someone who continually called people names as they discussed their rightness. Their rigid attachment to being right, stopped any form of dialog, I know I didn’t feel like saying much at all.

Remember, the more willing you are to hear these differences, the bigger the circle of trust around you.

4. Share the glory and freely give credit

Have you ever worked with someone or been friends with someone who takes all or the bulk of the credit?

Nothing erodes trust like feeling like someone stole your idea or took ownership of your hard work. You may feel violated. Or, the situation becomes something you circle and cannot let go of.

This break of trust often becomes a disruptive factor towards the forward direction of the goal, the relationship, or any community.

Pay attention when you are working with others that ideas and work are acknowledged and that people are given credit where credit is due. In fact, when appreciation isn’t shown, that’s one thing, people can live with that.

But, if their work or ideas are stolen, you may find that trust is broken and irreparable.

RELATED: 5 Signs That You Have A Rock-Solid Relationship

5. Demonstrate integrity and follow-through

Have you ever been in a situation where someone is saying all the right things, but their actions don’t mirror their words?

In my work, a lack of integrity in your words is one of the most difficult to understand for others. When you hear the right words, you’re hopeful and you want to believe. But, then, there is no follow-through and you’re left confused.

You said XYZ, but then did LMNOP. Why?

Here’s an example: Your boss or employee or wife comes to you, "Will you do XYZ?" You say, "Yes."

Maybe you really have the best intentions for doing XYZ. Or, because you wanted to avoid a prolonged discussion around why you don’t want to do it, you agree to XYZ.

But, you get busy with your day and forget about the agreement. Now, you’ve created a trust gap.

When we are dealing with people who say one thing and then do something different, it’s a crazy maker. At first, we might spend time wondering if we’re being too particular or demanding.

Then, every time we bring up XYZ, we hear the words we want to hear, again — "Yes, I said I would do this for you, and I will."

Are we crazy?

6. Remember actions speak louder than words

Any situation in which words and actions are out of alignment creates a trust gap that requires a lot of extra work to fix.

The fact is that while people might not like getting told ‘no’, they still tend to prefer it to a disingenuous ‘yes’.

If you call up your courage and honestly explain why you can’t do XYZ, then at least others won’t feel like they were bamboozled. And, each time, our words and actions are out of alignment, it erodes the trust in our relationships.

This easily becomes one of the many "little things".

As with any crazy maker, it’s easy to lose our cool and this only amplifies the distrust. To keep your cool, remind yourself of your goal, what you say, think, and do, will impact your outcome.

7. Take personal responsibility for your mistakes

Often when we make mistakes, we want to ignore them and move on. Maybe we hope no one will notice, or if they do, we have a speedy response that often sounds like a redirect and an attack all rolled into one.

Building trust is not about never making a mistake; it’s about full ownership of the error and developing a plan to correct the said mistake.

People trust people who take ownership of their actions.

If we get defensive and blame other people for our decisions, then we sow the seeds of distrust. It is a bit like a snowball rolling down a hill, it can gather speed and take out whole villages in its destruction.

8. Mentor and grow people

People trust and value people who help them learn to solve their own problems. Share perspectives, but don’t be attached to a particular outcome. Look for the learning moments and give positive feedback on jobs well done.

All these actions help to grow your trust influence. The role of a mentor is to believe in the potential of another person to become something.

John Gottman talks about a 5 to 1 imbalance towards the positive (5 positives for every negative) for relationships to feel healthy to people.

We are all more trusting of someone’s feedback if we believe that they are on our side, wanting us to be better.

9. Think wholistically

Look at the bigger picture. Many people get so focused on a specific goal that they are virtually blind to the cost of reaching the goal.

Consider the emotional, financial, energetic, and time costs to every situation. These costs are shared by all the people in situations where distrust grows.

Sometimes, it pays to go a little slower, ask a few more questions, and talk through all concerns before moving ahead.

When all the players feel heard, and all the questions get asked before jumping off the mountain, your team is more likely to follow as you take the leap.

Trust is a fragile thing. With it, small groups of people can move mountains together. Not every situation requires each step.

But, if you are in a situation where the trust is minimal, then you might want to think about several of these steps and see if they might just help you grow your trust influence.

Natural disasters may shatter our security. Still, most are beyond our personal control. Not so with our personal and professional relationships.

How we create psychological safety and develop deep trusting relationships is within our control.

Pay attention to the small building blocks of integrity and build or rebuild your circle of trust. With this level of honesty, you can create a space that few interpersonal storms can harm.

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Lyssa deHart, LICSW, MCC is a Clinical Social Worker, a Whole Life Executive Coach, and the author of StoryJacking: Change Your Inner Dialogue, Transform Your Life. To learn more, visit her website or schedule your Complimentary Introductory Session.