"Trust yourself, you know more than you think you do"

Self-trust forms the foundation of authentic confidence and growth. Benjamin Spock's advice encourages individuals to believe in their own intuition, experience, and inner resources. Often, people are beset by little doubts, assuming they might not have the right knowledge, skills, or judgement for the challenges in front of them. This lack of self-confidence often leads them to seek excessive external guidance, hesitate in decision making, or dismiss their instincts. Spock’s words challenge the notion that expertise and wisdom reside only in books, experts, or authority figures.

Human beings accumulate countless lessons through everyday experiences, small victories, and even failures. Memory, pattern recognition, and emotional intelligence supply people with unspoken insights. When faced with uncertainty, the mind draws upon this reservoir, providing intuitive solutions that can often exceed one’s conscious awareness. Trusting oneself allows that intuitive knowledge to emerge. By internalizing faith in one’s capabilities, individuals become more adaptive, creative, and resilient.

Many parents, for example, are overwhelmed by the responsibility of raising a child, fearing they lack the essential knowledge. Yet, through attentive care and love, they routinely make wise choices for their children that no manual could fully prepare them for. The principle applies just as powerfully to other areas of life: professional decisions, relationships, creative pursuits, and personal dilemmas. Doubt is natural, but excessive reliance on others’ opinions can drown out one’s own voice.

Believing in one’s own untapped stores of knowledge instills courage to act, to experiment, and to take ownership of outcomes. By reaffirming self-reliance and intuition, people grow into their roles and responsibilities with greater assurance. Even the mistakes along the way contribute to this growth, reinforcing the wisdom that learning comes not just from external sources but from within.