The practice of hope
When you're overwhelmed by the state of the world and struggling with personal challenges, where can you find hope? In this week's episode, we're discussing a different way to think about hope in difficult times.
You'll learn a simple three step model to use to feel more hopeful, and to use that hope to make positive changes happen.
Transcript
This week, I want to talk about hope. And specifically, how do we find it in difficult times.
There’s no denying we are in difficult times, that they have been lasting for a long time, and that we are all feeling the burden of it. In these moments, we have to revisit our whole playbook for hope.
A lot of think about hope in one way based on our past experiences. This is the hope that we feel is missing right now.
But there is another way to think about hope, and it’s something that is possible in difficult times. I have good news for all of us: it’s in these moments that we can find an entirely new sort of hope, a hope that sustains and drives us in a way that is profound and life changing, not only for ourselves but for the world around us too.
First, let’s start with the science: What is hope and why does it matter?
In scientific studies, feeling more hopeful has been found to lead to a number of things that we want in life. These include:
Better physical health
Better social support
Greater resilience to challenges
Fewer chronic health problems
Less depression
Less anxiety
A longer life
Plus, of course, we all know it feels good to be hopeful. It’s something that helps motivate and propel us forward towards what matters to us. Depression is characterized, in part, by a sense of hopelessness about the future.
Hope is one of those words where we all know what it means, but it is tricky to define. The science broken it down into three components:
The what (A goal)
The why (The motivation to work towards that goal)
The how (The plan for how you will achieve that goal)
So for example, we feel hopeful when we have identified a goal — I want to work towards this objective, I have a purpose that motivates me to do it, and I have a plan to do so. If any of these are missing, hope is stifled.
With all that being said, a lot of us have only experienced what hope is like when these three things magically align and we feel hopeful naturally. This is the kind of hope that alights upon us. It comes to visit us out of nowhere, it feels great and wonderful.
This type of hope is dependent upon things going well in our lives and all of the pieces lining up. For example, you feel hopeful when you get a job interview at your dream company. You have the goal — to work there; you have a why — the work that company does or the role and how it will help you to grow; and you have a how — a job interview where you’ll have the chance to show how wonderful you are.
This first type of hope is something that happens to us.
But as a lot of us are feeling right now, this type of hope doesn’t work when things are really hard.
Because things are not good, for many of us both personally and collectively. They’re so hard. And we don’t know what to do. We are exhausted and our motivation is depleted. We don’t have goals, or the energy to make a plan. It’s an easy and slippery slope from that place to feeling that nothing is going right in the world, there’s no beautiful future ahead, and that there’s nothing we can do anyways so might as well just give up.
But it isn’t hopeless. We just have to learn how to practice hope. To make hope happen for us. This is the second type of hope: hope as a verb, hope that we do.
The second type of hope
In hard times, we have to pursue the three elements of hope with intention and care.
I love this quote from E.B. White, who is the author of many classic books, including Charlotte’s Web: “As long as there is one upright man, as long as there is one compassionate woman, the contagion may spread and the scene is not desolate. Hope is the thing that is left to us, in a bad time. I shall get up Sunday morning and wind the clock, as a contribution to order and steadfastness.”
Hope is about winding the clock and making a contribution.
How do we do this?
The first step is finding our why — the motivation.
Our motivation comes from embracing our humanity.
I firmly believe that the greatest, most profound, most stable motivation that exists in the world is to believe in the goodness that we are as humans, and the goodness that is possible for the world.
When you see that and believe it, you are inspired to do more than you can possibly imagine.
That starts with recognizing the pain we’re in. This means treating yourself like you’re a human being who is going through a hard moment — in stark contrast to our default way of treating ourselves, which is like we are robots who are failing to execute on programs effectively.
Things might be terrible, terrifying, scary, horrible, unwished for, and devastating. Acknowledge that. Don’t hide from it. When you face it, you also get the gifts that the pain brings: the ability to be compassionate, courageous, and determined.
When you treat yourself with humanity, you are equipping yourself to treat others with humanity, too. The more you are in touch with your own pain and fear, the easier it is to be there for others in that same position. And when we do recognize the shared pain that we feel, we empower ourselves to tap into our greatest strength: that we are in this together. We are not alone. When I feel tired or am struggling with hope, I can lean on you; when you feel tired and struggling with hope, you can lean on me. We don’t have to always be strong, or pushing through, or being self-reliant. Hope as an action has to be collective in order to really work.
When you’re tapped into your humanity, you know what the best of us looks like. And you’re determined to make the best possible world for us to live in.
Second, we need to figure out a concrete goal.
One way to do this is to start from working backwards. If you’re feeling hopeless about a personal situation, ask yourself, What would a beautiful life look like for me?
If you’re feeling hopeless because of what you see going on in the world, ask yourself: What’s my dream for humanity?
Really let yourself imagine it; be as detailed as you can. Paint a picture in your mind.
Everything that exists around us was once a dream. Why can’t your dream become a reality, too?
Once you have your dream, consider what a short-term goal might look like. Short-term is going to mean different things depending on your state of hope. If you’ve been having a really hard time, I’d recommend choosing a goal that takes a week or two, nothing more. Anything bigger than that can backfire because it will feel overwhelming, and that will end up keeping you more stuck.
For example, if you have been struggling to find a job and are starting to feel hopeless, a short term goal you could set yourself is that for the next two weeks, you will reach out to people in your network or community, letting them know what’s going on and what you are looking for.
If you’re feeling hopeless about the world, and the state of human human rights, a short term goal that you could set yourself might be to identify an organization that is already doing this work where you can contribute.
After you’ve identified your what, figure out the how. What’s your plan?
I like to work in units of days. Today, I’m going to do this one action. That’s it. I’m just going to do one small thing today to move me a bit closer to my goal.
In the job instance, you might say you’re going to reach out to one person a day. After two weeks, you’ll have connected with 14 people, who in turn might connect you with many more!
In the world instance, you might spend ten minutes a day researching organizations, adding one to a master list every day. After a week, you’ll have seven organizations that you can review and figure out how to support.
It doesn’t feel like much. But it doesn’t have to be much. It just has to be something. I always remind myself of the expression that ‘with persistence a drop of water hollows out the stone.’
Not taking action is what keeps us hopeless. Taking action is what builds our hope. In order to do that, we have to have our motivation, we have to have a goal, and we have to have a plan. And drip, drip, drip, those actions will make a difference.
I hope this episode has helped you to find some hope. I’ll leave you with one last question: what is the hopeful action you will take today?
