Your Hope Reservoir
How is your “Hope Reservoir” faring lately?
There is a collective experience where everything continues to feel topsy-turvy, disorienting and discombobulating. This has had a negative impact on our ability to orient ourselves in a way that we are able to feel hopeful.
One way forward through the disorienting experience of shifts in systems, the barrage of hard news stories and social media is to get super clear on what hope is and what it is not.
What is Hope?
C.R. Snyder, the foremost expert on hope, describes hope as having three essentials:
· Goal: We have the ability to set realistic goals (I know where I want to go).
· Agency: We believe in ourselves (I can do this!).
· Pathway: We are able to figure out how to achieve those goals, including the ability to stay flexible and develop alternative routes (I know how to get there, I'm persistent, and I can tolerate disappointment and try again).
An essential question to consider: what makes a good goal? A good goal is a purpose or objective that I am committed to and that I can achieve by myself. Conversely, a desire is something that I want that needs someone else’s cooperation in order to accomplish it. Making a desire into a goal is a potential recipe for bankrupting your hope reservoir. Companies, teams and organizations can work together towards common goals. Working together is the best way to grow our hope reservoir AND get amazing things done.
Remembering the difference between a goal and a desire is super helpful for your hope reservoir! It helps us pay attention to what is ours and to let go of reactions that are out of our control.
A good goal is one that is small enough that you feel it’s possible. Take the time to explore how you can break down the goal into smaller chunks. This helps eliminate overwhelm and gives you a good place to start. Success will build your confidence and help you with the next step.
Focusing on one version of a goal may also bankrupt our hope reservoir. Life is messy. Shifting our perspective and redefining success might be essential as we face increasing complexity.
Imagine With Me:
My favorite word-picture that I draw upon into when my hope reservoir is taxed is to imagine myself on the shoreline of a stream or river. My goal is to get to the other side. I need to figure out how to get across. I know I have done hard things before and know that, with the right resources, I can get through some pretty tough stuff. There are many ways of crossing a river!
Getting across a raging river is possible when people with the right skills, equipment and strategies are utilized!
This word-picture has served me well when I am faced with long or short-term challenges.
What Hope is Not:
Hope is not happiness. It takes grit, pain and sometimes heart-ache to get to the other side. It would be weird to force myself to be happy through a situation that is fraught with struggle. Many of us try to do this and there are people who will tell you that you’re broken because you’re in struggle….not true. Struggle is more bearable if we lean into relationships where trust is high and we have normalized the experience of supporting one another as we face life-changing, powerful forces to create outcomes that matter. When situations are super messy we may have to be mindful of hope minute by minute, other times we might have enough for a day or longer. You’re not alone.
Hope is not optimism. They may go together, but they may not…. Optimism, by itself, lacks the grit and focus that hope provides. Hope takes action.
Coaching Moment:
Coaching, the art of inquiry, is one way of digging into the messiest challenges, to formulate goals, to explore possibilities and to bolster agency and courage. Here are some questions for you to consider:
What challenge are you currently facing?
What would success look like? Make a list of 3-5 possibilities. This will expand your perspective and help you see new ways forward.
Is there more than one way of getting what you want or need? (Think pathways across the stream or river.)
What are you responsible for?
What assets do you have that you can apply to the challenge?
Is there anything else that you need? How might you find a way to get that?
What is one small step you could take this week to get to your desired outcome?
Before you move along to your next task, I’d like to give you a nugget you can tuck away in your pocket: Need hope? Fill the GAP… Goals, Agency and Pathway.
You’ve got this.
