Hope: the compass of life

There are situations that can give the impression of extinguishing all hope of a better life and future. Losing the people we love the most, unemployment, losing physical functionality, mental illness, the diagnosis of a chronic illness ...

All these situations can cause a break with our expectations, what we thought about the future. Losing what we consider significant and valuable can contribute to misplacing our compass, our way of determining what will lead us to our goals. When this happens, we need new paths or strategies to achieve the old goals, many times taking a new direction.

It's easier to be hopeful when everything is going well. It is important, however, to keep hope alive and continue to cultivate it in the bad and difficult moments of life. That is why in this article I want to talk about hope, the elements necessary to cultivate it, and its benefits.

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The vision of the future affects the behavior of the present

Shane Lopez, in his book Making Hope Happen He explains that through his work and research on the topic of hope with millions of people, he has come to realize that the way we think about the future determines how well we live our lives. When we have clear hopes for the future we live well, when we do not, we can feel that life is not worth living.

It is therefore important to reconnect with a meaningful future, as this affects the behavior of the present. We can exercise and eat healthy because we want to have a healthy old age, look good or have a new relationship. Others may go to great lengths studying and working to obtain the material stability, freedom, or professional development they desire. We save money either for vacations or for other dreams with the ones we love. We invest in the present to reap what we envision of the future. Hope prompts us to act.

In turn, what we choose to do in the present creates and nurtures hope or plays to its detriment. For example, the constant postponement of important goals can cause that over time the hope of achieving these goals wanes because we begin to see that future more and more distant wanted.

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The theory of Hope

For Shane Lopez hope is a future-oriented state. Our thoughts look ahead and tell us what to do today. Our feelings lift us up and give us the energy to keep up the effort.

Likewise, he considers hope to be a choice, can be learned and shared with others, is active and requires effort. Additionally, Shane Lopez describes four beliefs that hopeful people tend to share. These are; think that the future will be better than the present and the past, believe that you have the power to make it so, believe that you can find various paths to your desired goals and understand that no path is free of obstacles.

These beliefs are key to the elements that make up the model of hope described by his mentor, Rick Snyder. The process of hope is then made up of:

1. Goals

They are the goals that guide human behavior. They can be short, medium or long term. It is identifying where we are now and where we want to go, what we want to do and who we want to be. Hope is built on goals that we consider most important, that we are excited to pursue, that are clear, specific and realistic. It is a balance between thinking positively about the future and recognizing the barriers and effort involved in achieving them. It is not passively wishing.

2. Agency

It is based on believing that you have an active role in achieving goals and influencing how your life passes. Is to know that Through the actions we take, we are shaping life, either for better or for worse.. It requires taking responsibility to improve situations and taking responsibility for moving forward with the achievement of dreams. As we see the connection between our actions and good results, we also go developing the ability to motivate ourselves and the ability to persist on the path despite the obstacles.

3. Roads

It consists of being recursive. It is the perceived ability to seek and generate multiple routes to goals and choose the most appropriate paths, monitoring progress. It also involves being realistic and anticipate that obstacles will arise at any time, so it is important to maintain flexibility and if it is necessary to make changes in the plans and / or choose better routes towards what is desired achieve.

Each of these elements interacts with the others. A change in one of them affects the others. When these components are strong, hope increases, when one is weak, hope decreases. That is when it is important to intervene to strengthen that element that is missing or that has not been developed.

When hope is not hope, but something else

It is important to understand that we are not talking about hope when we hold that things should be as we believe and want. Obsessing over the persistence of a relationship that is not healthy or that for some reason cannot continue, is not to maintain hope, it is a style of attachment. Likewise, it is persisting in projects that have repeatedly failed or can no longer come to fruition.

Life presents situations that are sometimes not under our control, but hope gives us the message that It is possible to start over, that we have the capacity to do so and that it takes our effort to achieve it.

We tend to think that suffering is bad, and that's why we try so hard to avoid it, even if it's unavoidable. But, just as diamonds, which are pure carbon atoms, under conditions of darkness, pressure and extreme temperature are transformed into the precious stone, the human being becomes transforms through difficulty, nullifying what does not serve him as excessive and useless fears or arrogance and developing positive qualities such as compassion and goodness.

Benefits of cultivating hope

High levels of hope are associated with better academic, athletic performance and success in business and in the profession, greater physical and psychological well-being and better interpersonal relationships (Lopez & Snyder, 2009; Lopez, 2013).

Hope has an impact on physical health by facilitating people's efforts to get involved in prevention activities. illnesses such as exercise, reduce the likelihood of engaging in risky behaviors and in coping with and recovering from health problems existing. Himself, higher levels of hope have been found to be associated with affection positive, greater satisfaction with life, greater perception of well-being and meaning of life (Lopez & Snyder, 2009).

The hope it also influences the assessment and coping with stressors and obstacles. Research has shown that people with the highest hope are effective in generating and using alternative pathways to goals. This is especially relevant when facing barriers in the achievement of objectives or when there are roads that are closed. People with little hope are more likely to use avoidance as a coping strategy (Lopez & Snyder, 2009).

Finally, people with high hope are prone to forming close connections with other people because they show interest. for the goals of others not only their own, they enjoy interacting with others and perceive greater social support (Lopez & Snyder, 2009).

In any case, we tend to learn a lot from the people around us and also to influence them. Fortunately, hope is contagious, so we can be touched by the hope of others and inspire those close to us as well, and so on. contribute to the feeling of well-being, motivation, and mutual growth in our relationships and spread it also in the world, which we all know well, the needs to.

Bibliographic references:

• Lopez, S. J. (2009). The Oxford Handbook of Positive Psychology. Second Edition. Oxford; New York.
• Lopez, S. J. (2013). Making Hope Happen: Create the Future You Want for Yourself and Others. Atria Books; New York.