As we end 2021, it is time to look to a new year. Are you hopeful for what 2022 can bring or are you struggling to have any hope for the future at all? I know a lot of people have struggled the past year and a half with how much the world has changed. It can be challenging to look forward to a bright future because of the past year and a half. Yet, cultivating hope can help to march forward to our futures. What do you want that future to look like?
January is a time when many set New Year’s Resolutions. I set goals throughout the year along with the steps to accomplish the goals. Do I always succeed? No, but I try to look at the bigger picture. I may at times set big goals and not accomplish them, but often I have accomplished part of the goal. This is still a success as I am closer to hitting my ultimate goal.
Why is hope important to our goals?
Let’s look at hopelessness first. Hopelessness is the feeling that something will not or cannot change. It can create a sense that there is no solution to a problem. This just isn’t true as there is always a solution, we just might not like the solution!
Hope on the other hand implies that there is the possibility of a better future. It is an active approach to life. Research indicates that hope can help us manage stress and anxiety and cope with adversity. It motivates positive action which contributes to our well-being and happiness. A hopeful person believes they can influence their goals and that their efforts can have a positive impact.
Where there’s hope, there’s life. It fills us with fresh courage and makes us strong again.
Anne Frank
Benefits of Hope
- Gives a reason to get up and start your day
- Improves mental wellbeing
- Benefits your physical body
- Strengthens the immune system as it reduces your levels of stress
- Increases self-worth, self-belief, and confidence
- Encourages to take positive action
- Motivates to surround yourself with like-minded people
- Reduces sadness and anxiety
- Creates opportunities
Hope is a beautiful thing. It gives us peace and strength, and keeps us going when all seems lost. Accepting what you cannot change doesn`t mean you have given up on hope. It just means you have to focus your hope on more humanly tangible and attainable goals.
Julie Donner Andersen
How do we develop hope?
There are three steps for building hope offered by Dr. Shane Lopez, PhD.
- “Futurecasting” which is envisioning a specific future goal in a way that makes it come alive.
- Work toward your goal. Create the pathways that are central to a model of hope.
- Planning for contingencies. See multiple solutions to a problem. It is important to come up with many ways to overcome obstacles to reaching your goals.
When we look at hope, it is important to note that it is not tied to a particular outcome. Hope is the belief that there is the potential for something good to happen.
2021 has been an extremely challenging year for my family, but –
- Tomorrow is a new day, and it brings with it the potential for good.
- After almost 60 years of living on this earth, I hang on to the saying “this too shall pass.” I have used this saying to encourage myself through many times over the years. And guess what? Those things I was concerned about have passed and I am still here.
So, as you look forward to 2022, I encourage you to look to hope. Cultivate hope in your life.
Ways to Cultivate Hope
- Recognize your strength to overcome the challenge.
- Look for opportunities to act as this increases the likelihood of a positive outcome.
- Connect with people who have faced similar circumstances, find a community.
- Lean on those closest to you.
- Work on your self-esteem and self-worth; you have value as a person and have much to contribute to the world and those around you.
- Trust that things will happen and that something good will come of it; you don’t need all the answers right now (this is one of my greatest challenges!).
- Be a source of hope for others, bring hope to other people by giving your time and energy to their needs.
- Rejoice in the little things that make life worth living. Gratitude makes it easier to trust in the potential of what lies ahead.
Hope is an essential thing in life, keeps us going, reminds us that bad things don’t last forever, and encourages us on to greater things. If you would like to take a quiz to determine how “hopeful” you are you can go here.
What are you hopeful for in 2022? Do you use any strategies to build hope? What are they?
Be blessed and be a blessing,
Heather
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