Three Tips on Cultivating Hope

The new science surrounding hope is that hope can help you cultivate a stronger sense of possibility. Consider three valuable interventions: A gratitude review, a day of kindness, and setting micro-goals.

It’s important to understand that these three interventions don’t come out of thin air. They are specifically designed to help you reframe the past, become deeply engaged in the present, and lean into the future by shedding a positive light on how you see your future.

Tip 1: Conduct a Gratitude Review

When we generally think of expressing gratitude, gratitude is most often about something that has taken place. If I asked you to tell me what you did yesterday, you would make a laundry list of all the things you’ve done. But if I asked you to look at the same 24 hours through the lens of gratitude—yesterday suddenly seems better than you initially remembered it, right?

When we think of our recent past in the light of gratitude, yesterday becomes a day filled with promise and appreciation. Myself, I do a gratitude review every morning. I often wake up with the to-do list staring me down. But I’ve learned that if I take two minutes—literally—I can review the day before and see it through the lens of gratitude. As Ted Lasso might say, I stop to smell the potential.

Instead of jumping into everything I must do, I warm up to all the good things that have already happened. This is what makes this intervention so easy. We do not have to create or do anything. We do not have to seek out and manufacture something to be positive. On the contrary, we are allowing our perception to rest on the good things that are already there. The volume of things we must do in any given day can be excessive. When the struggle to get things done happens—good things tend to fall to the bottom of our memory. 

We are allowing our perception to rest on the good things that are already there.

But when we focus on gratitude, we shift our perspective deliberately to highlight good and joyful things in our lives. Particularly when you begin this practice, it’s good to jot down your grateful recollections. As soon as you wake up, write down each of the three things, taking time to think about each of them briefly. This allows the positive feeling to be activated and savored. A gratitude review gets your day started in the right way. The more specific your gratitude, the better.  Each morning should be a different list.

Tip 2: Set an Intention for a Day of Kindness

The second tip is to pick one day per week to do five acts of kindness. My day is Thursday. If you dropped a book on Wednesday, I wouldn’t walk away and say, “I’m sorry; can’t help you—can you leave it there until tomorrow?” You can be kind as often as you like, but picking one day heightens our awareness of the intention to be kind.

Kindness activates elevation, a phenomenon where the person who engages in the act of kindness feels good, the recipient feels good, and curiously, anyone witnessing this act of moral beauty will feel just as good. Being kind is the fastest way to undo your own negative or depressing thoughts. When you help others, you’re helping yourself.

Tip 3: Set Micro Goals

There are many things outside of our control. Most things, in fact. But there are a few things that we can influence. A woman who was very depressed came to me for therapy many years ago. Her husband had left her and suddenly she was all alone. She immediately began to overeat and isolate. After several weeks of working with her, I realized the only time she left the house was for therapy.

One day she came in late with a package of paper plates under her arm. She apologized for her tardiness and explained that it took longer to check out than she thought.

I wondered out loud if the paper plates might be for company? But she explained they were not for entertainment. She told me she had run out of dishes. When I asked her to explain, she said she was using one dish to eat 3 to 9 meals on it. When I asked her why she didn’t wash the dishes, she got angry. She asked me what good would that do? She explained that it wouldn’t bring her husband back, help her pay the mortgage, or lose weight. She said buying the paper plates was the easiest way to go.

We went back and forth about this during this session. I encouraged her to wash one plate—just one—between now and the following week. She refused, argued against it, but finally, reluctantly, agreed to wash one plate.

That night she called me very excited and happy. She washed one dish. She said it felt so good she decided to wash more. Eventually she washed all of them, cleaned the closets, and scrubbed the floors.  She was ecstatic!

We can’t control everything, but knowing what we can control and applying ourselves to that will help us tremendously.

Setting the Tone of Positivity and Hope in Our Minds

Gratitude, kindness, and hope through the techniques of a gratitude review, a day for kindness, and micro-goals begins to shift our perception toward positivity and what’s possible. We go from thinking about the lack in our lives to reveling in what areas of our lives feel good.

The best part is that you can begin these practices right now. Find your gratitude, express your kindness, and if you can only wash one dish so to speak, choose which dish that is.