Over the past couple of years, I’ve used the first tip in January to discuss ideas about setting and achieving goals. But this year I’m starting early because the beginning of the year is always a rush. Why not get a jump on it now so that we can all hit the ground running when the calendar rolls over, right?!?
That said, today’s topic is about hope.
Now I know that the concept of hope might not initially seem relevant to goal-setting, but that’s because we tend to use it synonymously with the term wish.
In fact, these are the two primary definitions from dictionary.com:
Hope noun
: the feeling that what is wanted can be had or that events will turn out for the best
Hope verb
: to look forward to with desire and reasonable confidence
These definitions make hope seem like a passive mindset similar to a wish, the primary definition of which is “to want, desire, or long for”.
However, research shows that hope can be actively cultivated and that individuals who have a consistently hopeful mindset are more energized and motivated to achieve important goals.
Indeed, having goals in the first place is the first of three components needed to cultivate a strong sense of hope.
Here are a few important details about all three components:
Setting inspiring goals
Simplifying a bit from the concept of developing SMART goals, an inspiring goal of any kind has two primary characteristics:
First, it needs to be clear. If it isn’t, then it enters the realm of buzz words and cliches and is easily forgotten or ignored.
Second, and perhaps more importantly, it needs to be neither a 100% sure thing nor a 100% impossibility (i.e. 0% likely of being achievable). The former can easily lead to feelings of boredom while the latter will produce senses of apathy and discouragement.
Research shows that the middle of the road tends to be the most inspiring in this case. Meaning: it’s challenging enough to stretch us outside our comfort zones while being easy enough to still feel attainable.
Which leads to the second component needed to cultivate hope.
Having a sense of agency
In this case, agency is synonymous with self-efficacy/-confidence. We believe we’re capable of putting in effort toward the achievement of our goals and that those efforts will produce results.
Having a sense of agency also means knowing that we’ll both encounter obstacles on our path and have the capacity to overcome them.
Using that definition, you have a few options if you feel like you don’t have a sense of agency:
For now, first revisit your goals and make sure that they’re both clear and neither too easy nor too hard. If/Once you can check that box, next run your goals through the WOOP process.
Coming up with a specific action that you’ll take when you encounter a specific obstacle—the “P” part of WOOP—is the practical application of the conceptual idea of agency. It also leads to the third component needed to cultivate hope.
Designing multiple pathways
What do military strategists and Mike Tyson have in common? They both know that we should expect to traverse a variety of paths toward the achievement of our goals.
Military strategists say, “No plan survives first contact with the enemy.” Similarly, Tyson has quipped, “Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the face.”
In practical terms, this idea means that we can (and probably should) initially expect “failure” as we work toward our goals. Because even when we have a sense of agency and have run our goals through WOOP, we’re still guaranteed to occasionally get “punched in the face”. That is, some obstacles will simply be either unexpected or bigger than our capacity to handle.
But that doesn’t mean we should give up on our goals. Rather, we need to iterate our processes and develop new plans that effectively “re-route” us over, under, or around the obstacle.
When we do that, we experience two rewards. The first is a clearer path toward the achievement of our goals. The second is a renewed sense of hope. And that hope serves to reinforce our motivation and discipline to continue striving toward our goals’ achievement.
Putting it into practice
The end-of-year holiday season tends to be when hope is emphasized. But that hope is significantly less likely to contribute to meaningful change or progress if it takes the form of passive, wishful thinking than if it involves the components covered above.
So after you gather with friends and family during the coming weeks and talk about your hopes for 2024, make sure to also spend some time alone setting relevant and inspiring-to-you goals, cultivating an honest belief that you can achieve them, and brainstorming a few potential alternative processes for when the first option doesn’t work.
My holiday season hope is that you achieve whatever health and fitness goals you set for the upcoming year and that I can contribute to the process via this and past tips, coaching at the gym or online, or through other pathways yet to come.