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Strategies to cultivate a hope/optimism mind-set (based on Newport Academy, 2020). (from National Library of Medicine): https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8907849/
| Emphasis on strengths | Identifying and exploring individual strengths fosters a sense of hope and resilience. Bonding with others is one of our strengths, thus reaching out to friends and loved ones can create hope and positive emotions (Pleeging et al., 2021) |
| Reframe negative thoughts | When a person feels anxious or desperate, focusing on what is scary and seeing it in a positive way can bring an immediate sense of pleasure and pride in themselves (Das et al., 2020). For example, if we think “I’m never going to stop feeling anxious about everything that’s going on,” we can shift to “It’s normal to be anxious, and there are things I can do to make it better” |
| Practice hopeful thinking | A focus on hopeful thinking as an intervention enabling individuals to reengage in pleasant activities and improve self-talk. Hopeful thinkers take intentional action to achieve a desired outcome. Practice of hopeful thinking involves the perceived capacity to envision workable routes together with the energy towards goals attainment (Snyder, 2002). In depressed individuals, practising hopeful thinking decreases symptoms of sadness and depression and improves meaning in life, happiness and wellbeing (Gallagher and Lopez, 2018) |
| Increasing self-esteem and self-awareness | Mindfulness-based interventions—including activities like sensory awareness, guided meditation, breath control—foster happiness and self-awareness (Goldberg et al., 2018). When a person feels optimistic and hopeful, they often view themselves as benefiting from another person’s generosity, leading them to feel valued. This increases self-esteem, which in turn leads to higher levels of psychological wellbeing (Allen, 2018) |
| Hang out with hopeful and optimistic people | Surrounding ourselves with hopeful and positive people can, by “emotional contagion,” lead us feel that way ourselves. Evidence reveals that both positive and negative emotions are “contagious,” so we need to choose our social environment and interactions (Herrando and Constantinides, 2021) |
| Practice gratitude | Simple gratitude practices—like journaling, self-compliments, or sending thank you notes—can bring sanctity and authentic happiness (Bohlmeijer et al., 2021) and be more effective than self-control, patience, or forgivingness in generating hope for the future |
| Reinforcing positive affect | Induced positive affect (by several different means such as viewing a comedy film, receiving a gift) facilitates flourishing and predicts subjective wellbeing. Hope is related with positive affect and inversely with negative affect (Gallagher and Lopez, 2018). Positive emotions are particularly important to mental health in the context of high stress (Israelashvili, 2021) |
| Training resilience and finding a sense of purpose | Resilience refers to the ability to recover quickly from adverse events and experiences. Resilient people tend to maintain a more positive outlook and cope with stress more effectively (Vos et al., 2021). Facing crises can be strengthened by finding a sense of purpose in life. This might implicate involvement in the community, cultivating spirituality or participating in meaningful activities (Manning et al., 2019) |