8 Ways To Go From Hopeless to Hopeful
Hopelessness is that feeling of misery. You can’t see light at the end of the
tunnel. Other words that describe it might be forlorn and lost.
By
Tasneem Kagalwalla
We’ve experienced the high of feeling full of anticipation, brimming with confidence, and optimistic about the path ahead. We find that sense of encouragement to achieve goals in spite of adversities. After all; there’s hope!
Hope then is like the weave to the fabric of our existence. It’s the quintessential thread that holds us together. Having hope is like taking your next breath. Would it be fair to say that without hope we essentially lose motivation, direction, or even the will to survive?
Wouldn’t it be ideal if we never had to struggle with the hope-less days and forever remain positively charged? Always be hope-full.
Spirituality, faith in a Higher Power, trust in yourself, and the belief that everything happens for the best are a few of the likely answers. Hope then is intangible, it needs to be felt. It’s a feeling. And luckily a feeling can be evoked.
Like a song that makes you sentimental, an old perfume that makes you nostalgic, or a photograph that brings forth happy memories.
So how do you evoke hope? Here are 8 ways to do just that.
If you answered “Yes,” then focus on how to improve your possibilities and the faith to believe. What do you believe in and why? How can working on that make you stronger?
If your answer was “No,” figure out the difference between the two – hope and possibilities. That may help you understand how to best use your faith to have hope and see possibilities.
Observe those that are making progress toward their goals, are centered, happy and optimistic – do they do possibility thinking?
That is possibility thinking. Make time every day to imagine the day going well as you work to continue making progress toward possibilities.
Sometimes this needs a sincere commitment toward change and can be time-consuming. Stay determined to improve.
Learn to accept life events and work with them. Living in denial blocks hope.
Make shifts in your lifestyle if that seems like the way to make progress. Don’t be afraid to try the things you have wanted to do your entire life.
It is ok to pause for a little while, or start fresh. However, don’t you quit.
Meditate/pray and find time for recreation to be able to keep going forward.
Most importantly; pause long enough to realize you probably already possess a seed of hope. Even if you don’t realize it. You either feel hopeless or hopeful. Regardless of both eventualities; hope exists.
Look within – hope only needs to be evoked.
Notes from my desk: Hope has been recognized as an important and central element of healing, and has been known by many other names. Sometimes we call it optimism, the placebo effect, self-efficacy, or positive expectancies.
A life coach inspires hope during treatment and change. Often equated with the particular promise of a cure, hope is better understood in its broader meanings that involve will, way, wish, action, and horizon. This richer and deeper context of hope is a vital perspective for a coach or therapist.
Helping clients find and realize their sources of hope can be a process of waiting together for a clearer vision to emerge. It is important to remember that the task is not one of installing hope as much as inducing it, calling it forth from the client’s own resources.
In this sense, hope is not given as much as it is found. What coaches and therapists can give their clients is, at most, a lens or mirror through which their own vision is clarified.