Hope Is In The Heart And The Head

Hope, we all need it. Hope?reduces our feelings of helplessness, hope increases our happiness, hope reduces stress, and hope improves our quality of life. Without hope we will just drift through our day without drive, without direction, without passion.

Hope helps us to stay calm and peaceful when something untoward occurs. We know that when people are down in the mire they often have feelings of hopelessness, even if they don't know how to express it as such. They feel that there is no future.

Hope is?the belief that things will work out. Will they though?

Simply hoping that something will happen or hoping for the best is leaving it to chance. Hope is very much like dreams, like desires, like wishes. For me, hope is not enough by itself, there must be an accompanying action. To hope is to wish, to wish is to chance, to chance is to risk.

Martin Seligman researched helplessness which is closely linked to hope, when we believe that there is no hope we tend to feel helpless. Seligman strongly believes that hopelessness and helplessness are learned behaviours. When children need help but no one comes to help them they may be left feeling that nothing they do will ever change their situation. If repeated, these experiences support those feelings and can result in growing into adulthood feeling that there is nothing they can do to change their situation.

Common signs of learned helplessness and a lack of hope include failure to ask for help, frustration, giving up, a lack of effort, poor motivation, procrastination, and low self-esteem. These feelings will often lead to anxiety, depression, and even suicide.

There is hope to bring hope if we are feeling hopeless. It comes down to linking hope with passion, and passion is found in our hearts. Consequently, when we link our heart to passion we engage our head because our brains are action orientated. Brains love to work.

Just as you can work on feeling hopeless and helpless, you can also work on feeling impassioned and empowered.

If you are feeling that there is no hope, and many of us are feeling like that on occasion as we work through the pandemic, here are some ways to bring action with passion to achieve our hopes;

1. Reflect on your past - Look back to what you have achieved over your life, no matter how small, you most definitely have achieved something. Another option is to look back to setbacks you've had and compare where you were immediately after your setback to where you are now.
2. Run towards the fire - Always move forward for that is the way life is heading. One step at a time, just keep moving. The saying 'Nothing happens if nothing happens' isn't always correct, sometimes doing nothing results in regression.
3. Break it down - Set yourself a long-term goal and break it down into smaller chunks then list each step of that chunk. When we achieve each step and tick it off our list, dopamine is released as a reward. Dopamine is a powerful motivator and can also rewire our brain, success becomes addictive.
4. Follow role models - Look to people who inspire you and follow them. When we connect with other like-minded people, oxytocin is released that calms and energises us. Don't follow their path, make their path your own as you will never be them, nor should you ever want to be. Have a mindset where you would like them to feel that they want to follow you.
5. Find your passion - Simply, find something that you are passionate about. Passion brings purpose and purpose provides us with a sense of being and of belonging.

The timing never seems right when we want to start something or to make a chnage. "I will do this when I have this", or "I will start when...". There is no right time except now. NOW is always the right time when you want to make a positive change.

We all need hope, without hope we are lost. Hoping is not enough by itself, linking hope with passion is essential if we want to achieve. So, what are you passionate about, what do you want to achieve, what have you been waiting for? Get on and do it, right now.

Let's talk!

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Lance, a former police crisis negotiator and personnel?development manager, now provides enhanced communication, safety management, and personal resilience support to businesses across all industries;?https://www.warninternational.com/ ?

Lance is the author of the bestsellers - Behind The Tape and Dark Side of the Brain?-?https://www.warninternational.com/products?category=Books has created a series of eLearning courses - https://elearning.warninternational.com/