The Necessity of Hope
And How to Cultivate it
I was watching some old speeches of Barack Obama this week, and he spoke on two particular things that stuck out to me:
1, While we continue to pursue our goals, fight for what’s right, and acknowledge that we’re not yet where we need to be, it’s just as important to remember our accomplishments, how far we’ve come, and all the progress we’ve already made. And
2, he spoke endlessly on… hope.
“I have always believed,” he said, “that hope is that stubborn thing inside us that insists, despite all evidence to the contrary, that something better awaits us so long as we have the courage to keep reaching, to keep working, to keep fighting.”
Especially during this time of social unrest and a global pandemic, hope is a state of mind that can often be easy to forget, yet is one of the most life-giving and necessary practices on the path of perseverance.
To hope is “to cherish a desire with anticipation.” No matter what it is you desire — whether it’s something for yourself, for others, or for the world at large — hope is the fuel that gives life to the flames of our perseverance to see that desire through. To not give up or let go, but to persistently and relentlessly pursue that which can make our world a better place to be — no matter what’s happened to us or what’s happening around us.
“Hope begins in the dark, the stubborn hope that if you just show up and try to do the right thing, the dawn will come. You wait and watch and work. You don’t give up.” -Anne Lamott
What I appreciate about both Anne’s and Barack’s views of hope is by no means are they implying that hope is easy. Just like gratitude, hope takes work. Not only that, it takes work in what can be the darkest and most trying circumstances. Hope is easiest when it’s bright out; when life can give you a flurry of positive experiences and outcomes that draw your optimism out effortlessly. On the other hand, hope is hardest when we’re weighed down by the burdens of life, and the path before us is dark and unknown.
Warren G. Bennis says, “the opposite of hope is despair, and when we despair it is because we feel there are no choices.”
But we must remember there are always choices. We have choices to make every single day, and just as gratitude is a choice, so too is despair, and so too is hope.
So how do we cultivate hope? How do we wait, watch, and work? How do we not give up?
“If we want to cultivate hopefulness,” Brene Brown says, “we have to be willing to be flexible and demonstrate perseverance. Not every goal will look and feel the same. Tolerance for disappointment, determination, and a belief in self are the heart of hope.”
To break that down, here’s my take on the three key points that Brene says are the heart of hope:
- Tolerance for disappointment
Tolerance for disappointment is accepting the fact that we are disappointed without being crushed by it. It means enduring through the disappointment in order to continue down the path we’ve chosen towards a goal we may — or may not yet — be aware of.
Disappointment comes when one of our expectations is not met. It’s okay to be disappointed, or to feel let down when we didn’t get the outcome we hoped for, but we must not allow ourselves to be defeated by it. Pick yourself up, brush yourself off, and ask yourself what you learned from the experience so that you can either avoid making the same mistakes or pursue a better path in the future.
2. Determination
This, too, relies on endurance. Determination is predicated upon a force of will, an active decision to be in a state of discomfort in order to achieve a goal.
When we actively engage in discomfort, when we don’t try to run from it or make it go away, but can subsist through it so as to strengthen whatever physical, emotional, intellectual, spiritual, or social muscle we’re trying to build, we are actively participating in the evolution towards our own highest potential.
To be clear, I’m not talking about the discomfort we experience when we’re in a dangerous or harmful (whether it be physical or emotional) situation. Never sit in that shit — get out as soon and as safely as you can. I’m talking about the discomfort of emotional vulnerability and trust. Of mental fatigue while problem-solving. Of the pain of walking the non-linearity of your own healing. These are hard things, but the more we work at them, the stronger we get.
Determination means we are taking our experiences into our own hands, we are taking responsibility for the outcomes we wish to create, and — despite what forces are against us — we persist. Over and over and over again. We persist.
3. Belief in self
Belief in self means delighting in your strengths and having grace for your weaknesses. It means breathing and speaking Life into yourself by affirming who you are at your most authentic level. It’s learning to see your weaknesses not as flaws, but as challenges that, when overcome, only add to your strengths.
According to Lucas La Tour in his article, What Does It Mean to Believe in Yourself?, the two key points I took away were the following:
- Believing in yourself means believing you’re important.
When we believe we’re important, we believe that we’re valuable and worthy without adding anything or taking anything away. Believing we’re important means being able to stand and not flinch in the light of our own authenticity. It means knowing that we’re enough, just as we are.
2. Believing in yourself means not doubting your own abilities.
It means being able to look objectively at who we are and what we do without trying to refute the truth of our talents, thoughts, or actions.
It means that when we’ve created or done something — made jewelry, invented a new program, had a difficult talk with our kid, just learned a new piece of music — we’re able to embrace what we did as a success. We don’t just shrug off a compliment with “It was nothing,” or refute it entirely by pointing out all the little flaws. We look at our handiwork and say, “I did that. That’s pretty cool,” or we simply say “Thank you,” rather than, shrugging it off in saying, “It’s not that great.” Normalize acknowledging your own badassery.
In the words of Michelle Obama, “Don’t ever underestimate the importance you can have, because history has shown us that courage can be contagious and hope can take on a life of its own.”
Don’t ever underestimate who you are, or the importance of your story. The more authentically we can live our lives, the more we give permission to others to do the same. It takes courage to be vulnerable, to be truly ourselves, and the more we do it, the more contagious it will be. The more hope will take on a life of its own.
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Here are 3 directives this week we can use to practice Brene Brown’s 3 key points of hope:
- Tolerance for disappointment.
Pay extra attention to any disappointment you might feel this week. Acknowledge that you feel it, accept that it’s there without judgment, and then take time to evaluate why this disappointment affected you the way that it did. What were your expectations of the situation? Were they reasonable or unreasonable? Were they based on something you could control, or on someone else’s actions? How did you respond to the disappointment? Was your first reaction to blame someone else or yourself? Or were you able to reflect objectively on what went wrong and adjust your expectations? What role did you play in specific, and what would you do differently next time?
Process these questions in the way you’re most comfortable — talk with a trusted friend, write it down in a journal, or just think in quiet and solitude — but remember to be present as you do so. The more we can watch when our emotions come up, the more we can get to the root of the disappointment or any other negativity, figure out what the patterns are, and then how to counter them.
2. Determination
Again, determination is predicated upon a force of will, an active decision to be in a state of discomfort in order to achieve a goal. What are you working on right now that’s challenging you — whether it’s physical, such as working out, mental, such as learning a new skill, or emotional/social, such as controlling your reactions to someone with whom you disagree?
We work the muscle of determination through time and effort. Remember to breathe through what’s challenging you. When you have the predilection to give in to a snappy retort, or to drop that plank, or to quit that new skill, take a breath and reflect before you act. See if you can plank for even 5 seconds longer than what you could do previously. Resist the urge to engage in someone else’s negativity, and remind yourself to take the high road, or kindly step out of the room if you have to. If you want to quit the new skill, take a break for a day or two instead, and then come back at it with a fresh mind and try again.
These are all practices, and practice takes a lot more time and effort than I think we give them credit for. Keep at it.
3. Lastly, belief in self.
If you don’t already have it, belief in self is a big challenge in and of itself. Even if you do have it, it takes constant reminders to not let it go. So I actually have three little things we can do to try to help us believe in ourselves more.
First, write down on pieces of paper or sticky notes 10 things you’re good at and/or that you value about yourself. Put them up somewhere you’ll look every single day: the fridge, your bedside table, the mirror, etc. Heck, make copies if you need to and hide them somewhere you know you’ll eventually look as a nice little surprise reminder of who you are or what you’re proud of.
Next, if you’re like me and when someone pays you a compliment you can’t help but try to minimize the role you played in whatever it was, try practicing simply saying “Thank you,” or “I really appreciate that,” and then say nothing else. Don’t give explanations, don’t distract or detract, and don’t point out its flaws. It’s ridiculously tough, but it’s also important to practice honoring what you do. I’ll say it again. Normalize acknowledging your own badassery.
Lastly, when you mess up this week (and I say when, because we’ll likely all mess up at some point), acknowledge what happened, apologize no more than once, and then ask yourself what you can do next time to bring out a better outcome. Also, when you apologize, don’t attach an “I really suck,” or put yourself down in the apology — even if you’re apologizing simply to yourself. Have grace for you, and remind yourself that you are not what you’ve done. Just because you messed up does not mean you’re “a mess up.” Just because you have anxiety does not mean that’s all you are. Separate the thing from your identity — and tell yourself that you’re worthy, that you’re enough, that you’re valuable, no matter what.
