Hope Floats You
Psychology professor Dr. Scott Barry Kaufman writes in the Ottawa Citizen about hope, which he calls an "undervalued and under-appreciated" quantity in helping people succeed:
Hope often gets a bad rap. For some, it conjures up images of blissful naiveté. That's a shame. Science suggests that hope, at least as defined by psychologists, matters a lot.To be sure, hope is not a new concept in psychology. In 1991, the eminent psychologist Charles R. Snyder and his colleagues came up with what they called the hope theory: 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 their goals.
Put simply, hope involves the will - and different ways - to get there. (Where there's a will, there's a way, goes the aphorism.)
Why is hope important? Well, life is difficult. There are many obstacles. Having goals is not enough. One has to keep getting closer to those goals amid all the inevitable twists and turns of 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.
Hope is not just a feel-good emotion, but a dynamic motivational system. Snyder and his colleagues argue that a person's level of hope leads him or her to choose performance, or learning, goals.
"Learning goals" are conducive to growth and improvement. People with learning goals are actively engaged, constantly planning strategies to meet their goals and monitoring their progress to stay on track.
A bulk of research suggests that learning goals are positively related to success across a wide swatch of human life - from academic achievement to sports to arts to science to business.
Those lacking hope, on the other hand, may adopt what psychologists call "mastery goals." They choose easy tasks that don't offer a challenge or opportunity for growth.
When they fail, they quit. People with mastery goals act helpless and feel a lack of control over their environment. They don't believe in their capacity to obtain the kind of future they want.
In other words, they have no hope.
So how do we get hope if we don't have any? I'm having trouble with a relative who simply has no sense of hope, and I don't know how to help her.
Dragonhawk at February 19, 2012 4:25 PM
Amy Alkon
https://www.advicegoddess.com/archives/2012/02/hope-and-succes.html#comment-2988606">comment from DragonhawkI tweeted your question to Scott and asked him to answer.
Amy Alkon
at February 19, 2012 5:31 PM
How do you get hope? The old chesnut "fake it till you make it" is apropos here. My article outlines how people with hope think. The point of the article is that the thoughts that underlie the psychological construct hope is what is predictive of future success. Tell your friend to will what she wants, and keep at it, strategizing many different ways of getting there. Often people who have a lack of hope have it for one main reason: they don't feel they can control their environment. A way to gain control, is, counterintuitively, to fail. A lot. Because by failing, you are gaining valuable information you can use to get closer to your goal. She needs to fundamentally reconceptualize her life, and her ability to have control over outcomes in her life. Truth is, we all have a lot more control than we think we do. The ones who have the most control are the ones who think hopefully, amidst setback and obstacles. Those thoughts can be faked, and in time, believed. Good luck!
Scott at February 19, 2012 7:26 PM
"So how do we get hope if we don't have any?"
See any religion.
There's no inherent purpose evident for your being here. It's up to you to make one.
The distinguishing feature of life is that it fights the environment. You can quit that, too, if you want.
Radwaste at February 20, 2012 1:34 PM
Leave a comment