January 6, 2015
Hope is a human characteristic we all have. By experiencing hope, we can look forward to better times, even if we feel that we are at a dead end. Hope can give us the means to achieving a greater sense of success and happiness and allows us to experience a greater sense of peace and satisfaction.
However, it is difficult to experience hope when we are feeling down or sad. To experience hope we need to use our imagination to paint a futuristic picture of how much better things will be in the not so distant future. Unfortunately, this is no easy task if someone that is feeling down or depressed doesn’t even have the strength or the energy to think positively about his or her possible outcome.
The key to change that state of mind, however, is to understand that nothing good will come out of feeling down or sad. By feeling down or sad, the worst possible outcome is more likely to happen. As such, it is best to use every ounce of energy that you might have, to experience the type of hope that can drive you out of your present situation.
To do that you must start by giving yourself the chance to experience hope. However, the outcome that you hope for must be realistic and positive. For example, if your financial situation is precarious you might hope to resolve it by winning the lottery. However, although that could happen, it is not something that you would want to bank on. Something like that would only come about luck and not about hope. Hope is much more than luck. Hope is about creating a realistic path where you will plan to use your current resources whether financial, social, or otherwise to achieve a positive outcome. You should play around with the possibilities that you have at hand. Imagine the best possible outcome and work your way back from there.
No option should be off the table. To increase the possibilities that the outcome you hope for will become a reality you must make decisions that you truly believe in. They should energize you to the point that you can almost see things happening.
You must make those decisions being fully aware that no one has total control of their life and that your hopeful outcomes are possibilities and not guaranteed probabilities. You should also be willing to take risks if you feel that you are at a dead end. After all, it would be difficult for the situation to get much worse than it already is.
If negative thoughts or emotions come into play, you must focus on positive alternatives to avoid spending a single ounce of energy in entertaining negative probabilities. There is nothing wrong about experiencing negative emotions about your current situation. After all you don’t want to make your current situation your comfort zone. By experiencing negative emotions about your current situation you will find the motivation to take risks. On the other hand, entertaining negative feelings about your best possible options is not something that is going to get you anywhere.
You must also do your best to come up with multiple options to resolve your situation. This way if life throws you a curve-ball and the path that you are pursuing becomes rocky, having other options on deck will help you face the difficult obstacles with confidence and optimism. If the path that you are pursuing becomes obsolete, you know that you have other options that can improve your situation as well.
The important thing is to never stop looking for the good in whatever happens to you. After all, if you were facing a hopeless situation, anything that you do to improve your situation is better than going down without a fight.