Hope

1. Hope Week 5

2. Session outline • The meaning of “hope” – discussion. • Hope – What it is. • Hope - What it is not. • The week of hope. • The importance of hope in life. • SMART goals – the key to hopefulness. • Gift of hope – group exercise. • How hopeful are you?

3. The meaning of “hope” • Take a moment to think about the word hope and what it represents. • What does it mean for you? How does “hope” and talking about it make you feel? • Share your views and feelings with the group.

4. Hope – What it is • Hope is “a sum of the mental willpower and waypowerthat you have for your goals” (Snyder, 1994, p.5). • Goals – any objects, experiences or outcomes that we imagine and desire in our minds. Goal is something we want to obtain (i.e. an object) or attain (i.e. an accomplishment).

5. Hope – What it is 2. Willpower– the driving force in hopeful thinking, the mental energy (determination and commitment) that over time helps us to move from point A (current state) to point B (desired state - goal) – “I can”, “I’ll try”, “I’m ready to do this”, “I’ve got what it takes”…

6. Hope – What it is 3. Waypower– reflects the mental plans or road maps that guide hopeful thought; mental capacity we call on to find one or more effective ways to reach our goals (i.e. planning, setting up concrete steps).

7. Hope – what it is • Hope is a human strength manifested in capacities to: • Clearly conceptualize goals (goals thinking), • Develop the specific strategies to reach those goals (pathways thinking). • Initiate and sustain the motivation for using those strategies (agency thinking). (Snyder, Irving & Anderson, 1991).

8. Hope – What it is not • Not unrealistic optimism – optimism without plans may be a hollow promise and leads to frustration and disappointment. • Not learned optimism – distancing oneself from and delimiting the impact of failures. Hope is the essential process of linking oneself directly to a potential success. • https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2hHNq45rEnU

9. Hope – What it is not • Not Type A behaviour pattern – hard-charging, time-urgent, and goal oriented people; can be quite hostile and life is a competition for them that they just have to win; “I’m not good enough” mindset. • Not emotion and self-esteem – believed to be the source of human action (i.e. feeling good and having high self-esteem help us to take action and get things done) – It is actually the other way around! – by-product of how effective we are in the pursuit of our goals.

10. Hope – What it is not • Not intelligence or previous achievement – High intelligence and previous achievements only give people a chance but don’t determine the outcomes… (e.g. my brother) • Not useless – helps us to understand how people cope and whether people with higher hope have better outcomes in their lives than people with lower hope. • Not vague – not an empty promise; it is a specific way of thinking about oneself rather than some immeasureable philosophical notion.

11. The week of hope • You have just received the online part of this program, which focused on hope. • On Wednesday, you had to think of three things you had genuine hope for and action steps towards achieving those things. On Friday, you were asked to identify your motivationbehind your hopes. On Monday, you were asked to visualise your hopes. • How did you find the exercises? • Share your experiences with the group.

12. Overcoming hopelessness • https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6P2nPI6CTlc

13. The importance of hope in life • High people have greater number of goals and more difficult goals (e.g. Bressler, Bressler & Bressler, 2010). • Hopeful people are more successful in achieving their goals, more happy and less distressed. • Hopeful people have superior coping skills, recover better from physical injury and report less burnout from work (e.g. Case, 1992; see Snyder, 1994).

14. The importance of hope in life • Higher levels of hope predict better academic performance (e.g. Curry et al., 1997, 1999). • Hope enhances psychological strengths, well-being and life satisfaction (Marquez, Lopez & Pais-Ribeiro, 2011).

15. SMART goals – the key to hopefulness • SMART: • Specific • Measureable • Attainable/Achievable • Realistic/Relevant • Timely • Hopeful are more successful because they set their goals in a SMART way. • Do you set yourself SMART goals?

16. Gift of hope • Remember a situation when you were hopeful (positive, empowered etc.) – this can be from the past or it can represent your current hopes. • This is your gift of hope. • What were you feeling when you received this gift? What is the symbolic gift in the box, that helped you feel this way? • Why did you feel this way? What did the gift mean to you? What was it like to receive it?

17. How hopeful are you? • You may have thought that you were a hard-nosed realist or even a pessimist but you might be more hopeful than you thought… • The Hope Scale – a score of 24 or more indicates that you usually think in ways that are very hopeful; if your score is less than 24, you probably do not typically approach things with a hopeful mindset. - your hope Scale score reveals your thoughts about getting things you want in life.

19. The good news is that hope and hopeful thinking can be nurtured… Don’t hope tomorrow will be another or better opportunity to start – do it today!