Are you in a situation in your life right now where you feel the odds are against you and all hope is lost?
You are not alone.
Things can happen in life where you'll suddenly find yourself at the downside of hope. It could be the loss of someone or something dear to you, a circumstance that is too much to bear, some things that are not working out, a phase where you've got stuck and can't see any path forward, a feeling that you are all by yourself, or a total loss of interest in living.
No matter what you've gone through or are going through, you can get over your current circumstances and beam with the ray of hope again. You will find in this article some useful suggestions to help you rekindle your hope and triumph over your current situation.
What Is Hope?
Hope is an expression of confidence in life, a basis for more practical dispositions such as patience, determination, and courage. Hope provides aims and the motivation to attain those aims.[1]
Why Hope Is Important in Life
Hope is a great necessity for producing and sustaining the enthusiasm required to live a purposeful and fulfilling life. If you want to live a full and meaningful life, hope is one companion you can't afford to lose.
It is said that:[2]
'Man can live 40 days without food, three days without water, eight minutes without air, but only one second without hope.'
Below are some ways hope is essential in life:
1. Hope Produces the Courage Required to Face Life Challenges
Many situations in life come without a warning, and people often find themselves unprepared to handle the difficulties that may arise as a result of the situation.
For example, the COVID-19 pandemic that struck the entire world didn't give any notice, yet it has claimed hundreds of thousands of lives, millions of jobs, and businesses have lost billions of dollars.
There are other challenges that may not come in the same magnitude as COVID-19 but can have debilitating effects on an individual's health, finance, family, or business. But when you can find an anchor of hope in the midst of your challenges, hope will arise from the inside of you and you will suddenly gain the courage to face the challenge.
It sometimes works like magic when you suddenly find strength in your weakness, hope in your hopelessness, and opportunities in the midst of scarcity.
2. Hope Is Optimistic That Things Will Work Out
Hope does not give up too soon, and it doesn't accept defeat.
When you have hope, you can get almost anything done because you believe that your efforts will eventually payout. Hope helps you believe that despite the unpalatable experiences you are having, you will eventually overcome them.
3. Hope Helps Initiate New Strategies
Hope gives you the initiative to come up with new strategies in finding a solution instead of giving up. When you have hope, you'll become creative and innovative to find alternative ways to come out of your current situation.
Hope looks for new ways to achieve its dreams instead of succumbing to the weight of impossibilities.
4. Hope Helps You Stay in the Game Until a Solution is Found
There are times when you can't even see a way forward in a situation. It's just like having to swim to the shore when you find yourself in a capsized boat.
You don't even know how far or close you are to the shore, and you have only two choices: to drawn and die or continue to swim for as long as you can until when probably a miracle happens.
Sustaining your hope can help you keep on until a solution is found. Most people have found near-miraculous solutions as a result of persevering and staying in the game.
How to Recover and Rekindle Hope
When in a situation where you are thrown off balance and found yourself on the lowest end of hope, here are some suggestions on what you can do to recover, rekindle, and rejuvenate your hope.
1. Express Your Feelings
Get it out of your head.
Sometimes in order to find a solution to a problem, you have to start by unloading your mind from it. There is a kind of relief that you get when you express your feeling by speaking out either to yourself or to a listener.
You can write out your situation in your personal journal and depending on the sensitivity of the issue, you can write on a personal blog or make a video post to narrate your experience on a platform like Instagram.
Speaking out, your mind will be free from bearing the burden alone and you can get helpful counsel that can spring up hope in you again.
2. Find a Community
Apart from expressing your feelings through various means, you can also find hope in communities. You will find communities of people facing similar challenges as yours. In such communities, you will discover coping mechanisms or hear success stories of how people are overcoming the common challenge.
You can find such communities by attending a networking event or searching for interest groups on social media. As you get to hear other people's stories and how they've been able to overcome similar challenges, you will find hope to overcome yours as well.
3. Connect to a Bigger Picture and a Larger Purpose of Yours
When you focus on your immediate challenges and how badly things have turned out, it might be difficult to find hope. But when you focus on a bigger picture and larger purpose of your life, you will find inspiration to believe again.
You'll also know that this phase will pass and there will be the dawn of a new morning, a morning that will lead you to your bigger dream.
4. Relive Your Memorable Moments
Sometimes, some problems can look like much of a big deal until you recall some of your live events. You might find out that you have been through worse things and came out strong. You will also find several moments that you had initially lost hope on certain issues but put up a good fight and became victorious.
Even if those issues were of smaller magnitudes compared to the ones you are currently facing, you can still use a similar approach at a higher scale to bring the desired solution.
5. Do Something Different
Another way to find hope is to try something different. You can change your routines or change your environment by going on a vacation where you'll see beautiful places and scenes and meet new people.
You can also spend some time with nature to revive hope. It's been found that spending time with nature has both physical and psychological effects. It reduces stress and also relieves depression and anxiety.[3]
6. Read Biographies and Autobiographies
There is a common saying that there is no new thing under heaven.
People have come and gone in this world and have encountered all kinds of difficult situations. So many stories of travails and triumph have been told or written, and reading such information can help you gain motivation in your hopelessness and you can also find practical ways to deal with your peculiar situation.
7. Watch Heroic Movies
Whether they are based on true-life stories or are just pure fiction, you can find inspiration by watching heroic movies.
Movies have a way of appealing to our sensitives. They can also spark the drive you need to forge ahead. When you watch how ordinary people turn situations around and become great in spite of all odds, something inside of you will assure you that you can also overcome your current situations and triumph.
8. Rewatch a Historic Sports Event
Sport is full of stories of surprises and magical comebacks, especially at the 'injury time' when all hope is lost. Watching such games can help you gain excitement and rekindle your hope.
There are also specific stories of coaches, teams, and athletes that have staged a surprise comeback when people have given up on them.
Worthy of particular mention is the Tiger Woods' story, which has been tagged as one of the finest comeback stories in sporting history.[4] Woods won the Masters again after going through a career slump due to personal challenges and ill-health.
Such an inspirational story can help you realize that you can still find hope even in the most hopeless situation.
9 Seek for Help
You can talk to your partner, friend, counselor, or anyone willing to listen to your story.
Apart from speaking to people, you might also need to take proactive steps. You can ask for specific help such as creating a crowdfunding campaign if you need financial help, talk to an advocacy group if you are being cheated or abused, or ask for help from other experts that can handle your specific situation.
10. Seek Divine Help
As humans, many things are beyond us and this is why we should not hesitate to seek divine intervention whenever we fall flat on our face. Several people have found hope, joy, and restoration by seeking help from 'above'.
By praying and unloading your burdens to God, you acknowledge that you are only human and require the help that is greater than what any other human can provide.