8 ways to go from hopeless to hopeful
We’ve all been there. Swinging the seesaw of hope. We’ve
experienced the highs of feeling full of anticipation, brimming with confidence,
optimistic about the path ahead, encouraged to achieve in spite of adversities.
After all; there’s hope!
And we’ve seen days (if not more) of feeling low and
miserable, seeing no light at the end of the tunnel, forlorn and lost, we despair; desperate we trust our
fractured souls to any ray of hope!
Hope then is like the weave to the fabric of our existence.
The quintessential thread that holds us together. Having hope is like taking
your next breath; breathing. Without hope; would it be fair to say that 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,
Belief that everything happens for the best… these are a few of the likely
answers and (to each heir own) rightly so. 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 some ways to do just that.
- Ask yourself, "Are hope and possibilities
through faith related things?”
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.
- Look at the people around you. You can learn
plenty from them.
Observe those that are making progress toward their goals,
are centered, happy and optimistic -- do they do possibility thinking?
- Imagine waking up fresh every morning, truly
feel hopeful. That is possibility thinking. Make time every day to imagine the
day going well as you work to continue making progress toward possibilities.
- Get training or coaching/counseling. Sometimes
this needs a sincere commitment towards change and can be time consuming. Stay
determined to improve.
- Decide to take it as it comes... accept life
events and work with them. Living in denial blocks hope.
- Take risks, make shifts in your lifestyle if
that seems like the way to make progress.
- Redesign, rebuild -- a little at a time or start
afresh, but don't you quit.
- Relax and be refreshed; 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
hope – less or hope- full. 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, including optimism, the placebo effect, self-efficacy, and
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 the therapist.
Helping clients to 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 evoking it, calling it
forth from the client's own resources. In this sense, hope is not given as much
as it is found. What therapists can give their clients is, at most, a lens or
mirror through which their own vision is clarified.
Contact Tasneem Kagalwalla for more information on how Life Coaching works best for you.
