“It takes time and believable behavior to establish a new track record. Don’t rush past that. I want this to be one of the statements you forever carry with you: trust takes time plus believable behavior, along with consistency, so a solid track record can be established.”- Lysa TerKeurst
As Lysa TerKeurst moves on in Chapter 4 of I Want to Trust You, but I Don’t, she contrasts low-impact broken trust with high-impact broken trust. Most likely, one can repair low-impact broken trust with conversation and a few adjustments. As a result, you can usually reestablish and probably even strengthen trust relatively quickly. Hence, this signals a confidence issue and not an integrity issue.
However, Lysa cautions, too many rips, even if they’re small, cause problems if not repaired. Because that causes us to lose more and more confidence in someone. In addition, when no positive progress occurs, broken trust starts to feel like an integrity issue.
Therefore, high-impact broken trust takes a lot more time and a lot more work to repair. For example, in Alcoholics Anonymous there’s a saying: “Nine miles in. Nine miles out.”
In other words, deeper hurts require longer journeys to recover trust. It takes time to repair severely broken trust. Thus, Lysa explains:
“The thing that makes high-impact broken trust take so long to repair is that you’re not just having to address hurtful behavior. The character and integrity issues inside the offender are the real driving force for why the behavior occurred in the first place. . . . And it’s not your job to fix them. To see real progress here, you cannot work harder on someone than they are willing to work on themselves.”
In conclusion, Lysa counsels, it’s like pouring gasoline on a fire to combine breaches of trust with a lack of communication. To do so accelerates the damage. So, it’s crucial that you determine what you need from another person to repair the rips. Furthermore, you need to identify the origin of the rip as well as the significance of that rip to you.
Today’s question: What do you see as necessary to establish a solid track record? Please share.
Tomorrow’s blog: “The truth comes out in actions”