About Hope | #MyFridayStory No. 65

We have all heard the phrase, ‘Never, ever give up!’

If you have persevered through hardships, made sacrifices, and still achieved your goals, you might be surprised to know that hope served you more than your grit, passion and determination combined.

In my opinion, hope as a concept, is often wrongly criticised for being wishy-washy and non-committal. When you mention, ‘having hope’, folks get the impression you are merely ‘wishing for something.'

Hope is a lot more than that.

According to Scott Barry Kaufman of Beautiful Minds, psychologically, the positive effects of hope are well documented. In 1991, the distinguished professor of clinical psychology, Charles Snyder (1944–2006), an American psychologist who specialised in positive psychology, together with his colleges, came up with Hope Theory. The theory suggests that hope consists of agency and pathways.

The person who has hope, has the will and determination that goals will be achieved, and a set of different strategies at their disposal to reach those goals. Or put more simply:

‘Hope involves the will to get there, and different ways to get there.’

In his article published in Psychology Today, The Will and Ways of Hope, Kaufman goes on to explain how important it is to have hope in order to achieve your goals in life. ‘Hope allows people to approach problems with a mindset and strategy-set suitable to success, thereby increasing the chances they will actually accomplish their goals.’

But hope isn’t only a feel-good emotion. It is a dynamic cognitive process. In other words, hope is a conscious process we can conjure up.

Hope leads to learning goals, which are necessary for growth and improvement.

People with learning goals:

• Are actively engaged in their learning
• Constantly plan strategies to meet their goals
• Check their progress to stay on track

But, people lacking hope are more likely to adopt mastery goals.

People with mastery goals:

• Choose tasks that are easy, with no opportunity for growth
• When they fail, they quit
• Act helpless, and feel a lack of control over their environment
• Believe they are not capable of achieving the kind of future they desire

They have no hope.

Learning Goals have been proven to be positively related to success in many aspects of our lives, including sports, science, the arts, academia and business. Patients with high hopes of success before treatment, benefited more from the treatment than those with low hope.

We can’t deny how important it is to have hope. We need hope if we want a better future for the next generations. If we can actively engage hope, and it has such positive results, we all should.

Let’s make 2019 a year full of hope.

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