By Dan Tomasulo, PH.D
For the past couple of years, I’ve been researching the science behind hope and hopefulness. I’ve found that some people naturally cultivate habits that generate sustainably high degrees of hope during adversity. More than this, I’ve found that what high-hope people do naturally can be learned.
Low-hope people seem to get stuck in their own thoughts. Their habits of thoughts, feelings and behaviors keep them in a fixed loop, a downward spiral that becomes more difficult to break out of the longer it continues. Individuals with low hope, when they are confronted by ongoing adversity, tend to see themselves as unfairly treated and stuck with no options. They tend to withdraw and avoid dealing with the obstacles in their life. They shut down and are mostly avoiding dealing with the crisis.
High-hope people move toward the conflict. They see the adversity as a challenge or opportunity. They bring to the crisis at hand, the adversity, a type of awareness that allows them to look at it differently than how low-hope individuals do. High-hope people experience a predicament in two ways: They see the problem, but at the same moment also see what can be done. It’s as if in this crucial moment, they say to themselves, “There is another way of looking at this.”
In this incipient moment when a difficulty is confronted, they meet it with the challenge of seeing possibilities. Low-hope people accept the situation as hopeless. High-hope people do not because they challenge the limits of that perception.
There is some compelling science behind this work, but at the core of what high-hope people choose to do when dealing with adversity is:
1. Look For Possibilities
2. Notice The Good
3. Cultivate Positivity
4. Use Strengths
5. Adjust Goals
6. Engage With Purpose
7. Cherish Others
These seven decisions, when confronted with adversity, make all the difference. It seems as if habits of perception form that keep high-hope people quite agile when dealing with the difficulties of life. Why is this important? Because the research shows that people with high hope live longer, have fewer illnesses, less pain, better sleep, less depression, higher well-being, better productivity at work, and are happier than their less hopeful counterparts.
If you are a high-hope person, congratulations. If not, the next time you are in a difficult situation, you might want to use the very tool high-hope people use and say, “There is another way of looking at this.”
Dan Tomasulo is a core faculty member at the Spirituality Mind Body Institute (SMBI), Teachers College, Columbia University, and holds a Ph.D. in psychology, MFA in writing, and Master of Applied Positive Psychology from the University of Pennsylvania. Honored by Sharecare as one of the top ten online influencers on the issue of depression, his next book is “Learned Hopefulness, The Power of Positivity To Overcome Depression.” DanTomasulo.com
The article originally appeared in the May 7th – May 13th, 2020 print edition of The Two River Times.
