How to Be Hopeful, Even When It’s Really, Really Hard

Adobe Stock / Marina Zlochin / Morgan Johnson

I can’t lie to you—things these days are bleak. The coronavirus has fundamentally changed the way our society works, and, even more depressing, there are some serious ways in which it hasn’t changed things at all. People are dying. People are losing their jobs. And even people whose circumstances haven’t changed that much are dealing with new challenges they probably never thought they’d have to face.

In times like this (not that I can name another time like this), it feels impossible to maintain any sense of hopefulness or optimism about the future. Not only is it a challenge to imagine any future in a world where things are constantly changing, but it’s especially tough to think—let alone expect—a future in which things are actually somewhat positive.

But, as uncomfortable as it may feel, pushing ourselves to imagine that better future may be a crucial way for us to maintain some semblance of mental well-being—now and whenever that beautiful future does arrive.

What actually is this so-called hope you speak of?

In general, having hope is having an expectation that something good will happen in the future or that something bad won’t happen, according to the American Psychological Association (APA). You can think about hope in different ways; you can feel it as an emotion or use it as one way to motivate yourself to action or as part of a coping mechanism that gets you through loss.

Being hopeful makes you an optimist, which the APA defines as someone who “anticipates positive outcomes, whether serendipitously or through perseverance and effort, and who [is] confident of attaining desired goals.” We all exist somewhere on the spectrum of pessimist to optimist, and very few of us are full-on, forever, only glass-half-full people. It’s completely normal to have trouble being optimistic, even in the best of circumstances. But now it’s even more of a challenge. So why bother trying to be hopeful when things are so overwhelmingly bad?

“Basically, so we don’t feel so miserable and afraid about the things that we face in life that are inevitably going to come around from time to time,” Richard Tedeschi, Ph.D., professor emeritus of psychology at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte specializing in recovery from trauma and bereavement, tells SELF. “If we can face them with a sense that there’s something we can do about them, life becomes easier to live.” Essentially, hope can be the catalyst to get us to create other behaviors that do make things a little easier. And performing those behaviors can, in turn, fuel more hope.

And for those with mental illnesses, such as depression or anxiety, cultivating hope and resilience can be key to managing their symptoms, Tedeschi says. In depression, for instance, a persistent feeling of hopelessness is often a defining symptom (and one of the criteria for diagnosis in the DSM). In the case of anxiety, fear is the driving factor. “In both cases they’re drawing the conclusion that things are out of their control and things aren’t going to work,” Tedeschi says. Figuring out a way to become more hopeful, even—or especially—when life is difficult, is usually a necessary component of treatment.

The benefits of being hopeful

Putting in the work to be hopeful has other psychological benefits too. In particular, hope helps build resilience, which “is the ability to either recover quickly from events that are challenging or traumatic or a crisis or to be relatively unaffected by these events,” Tedeschi explains.

But resilience isn’t just being able to withstand a difficult situation. “It has to do with living a fuller life,” Lillian Comas-Diaz, Ph.D., a psychologist specializing in trauma recovery and multicultural issues, tells SELF. “Resilience is a way of coping with adversity and being able to get some knowledge from that adversity,” which might help you improve your coping mechanisms for the future.

From there, it’s easy to see how hope, optimism, and a generally more positive outlook might develop with resilience. It works like a feedback loop, Tedeschi says: “If you have success in managing these situations, you become more optimistic about how you’re going to do in the future,” he explains. And as you develop some optimism and hope, that might help you persist and manage in the face of the difficulties we all inevitably face.

Building hope depends on building resilience—and vice versa. Here are a few tips for how to be hopeful from our experts.

If it’s really hard to feel hopeful right now, start by just acknowledging that.

Yes, learning how to be hopeful is nice and helpful. But what about right now when everything feels like it’s crashing down around us? Some people are just naturally optimistic—even in a situation like this. But, generally, resilience is something that’s learned—first through our experiences in childhood, potentially, and then later as we go through the inevitable challenges of life, Tedeschi says. So for those of us who maybe feel a little silly trying to look for a silver lining in, you know, a global pandemic, trying to be hopeful just doesn’t feel genuine. And if it’s not authentic, it isn’t very helpful.

If you’re someone who finds it difficult or even feels silly trying to be optimistic right now, know that hope doesn’t necessarily mean thinking that everything will always be amazing. Being hopeful doesn’t have to be about looking for the bright side or deluding ourselves into thinking everything will be just fine, Comas-Diaz says. Hope is really just a (realistic) expectation that something good will happen—and that you have some control over it.

For some people, it might be difficult to be hopeful because they don’t have a source of hope they can immediately point to, Comas-Diaz says. In those cases, she will ask her patients to do an inventory, asking what sources of hope their friends, family, or larger culture draws upon and if the patient can “borrow” from that source as well. Think about, say, your mom or a close friend—what brings them hope? Can you share that with them or get some hope vicariously through them? Or is there a particular cause you’re really passionate about that you can draw some sense of optimism from?

For instance, if you lost your job but you’re passionate about a certain cause—animal welfare, reproductive rights, et cetera—you might find some hope by donating time and effort to those issues while you figure out what your next job might be. If you had to cancel or postpone a wedding, turning to family members and thinking about how much they want to be there on that special day (whenever it is) might give you the hope you need to move forward and keep planning.

Others may find hope comes from their spirituality or a non-spiritual sense of their small place in the larger community. Basically anything that helps remind you of the scope of the world, of your goals, and what (small, perhaps) role you might play in it all can bring a positive sense of what’s to come.

Try to keep some semblance of a self-care routine.

Cultivating hope starts with being able to authentically identify how you’re feeling in a particular moment, identifying how you would rather be feeling, and building or drawing on the tools in your life to help you feel that way. That might start with individual activities or self-care practices but will and should involve participating in genuine, healthy relationships as well.

First off, don’t give up on your usual self-care routine. Whatever is bringing you joy or making you feel better right now, stick with it, Comas-Diaz says. Maybe that’s working out at home, diving into a creative project, revisiting a favorite TV show, having Zoom happy hours with your friends, or just, you know, getting yourself to plan meals and brush your teeth regularly. Though they may seem small, these activities are the foundation for building up resilience and hope—even when things are really tough.

Not only will these activities help you keep up your mental well-being, they’ll also give you small moments to look forward to in the near future, even when things feel out of control and unpredictable.

Learn to identify and possibly reframe negative thought patterns.

If you try to be hopeful and find that it’s just too difficult right now, interrogate and try to reframe those negative thought patterns. For instance, as psychologist Todd DuBose recently wrote for the APA, we are reframing the hopeful refrain “It’s going to be alright” as being more about “No matter what, we are in this together” rather than “Look at the bright side.”

More specifically, you can try something like the ABCDE model often used in cognitive behavioral therapy, Comas-Diaz says. The A stands for adversity, meaning you have to name the challenge or problem you’re up against. The B calls you to look at what negative belief you have about the situation. The C means you need to examine the consequences that belief is having on your behavior and emotions, particularly how you feel about yourself. When you get to D, that’s the point where you start to dispute those beliefs and offer alternate explanations to yourself. Finally, E stands for energize or new effect, which signals the introduction of a new line of thinking about the original event or challenge.

Here’s what that might look like in practice: Maybe you start with a thought like: The pandemic is awful and ruining so many of the things I was looking forward to this year. That means everything I wanted to do is canceled and there’s nothing good in my future. Maybe something good could happen or we could solve this crisis unexpectedly quickly, but it feels stupid and naive to count on that. So I’m not going to make any new plans and instead I’m going to just sit here because why even try?

But when you start to dispute those beliefs, you can introduce other possibilities—like maybe your five-year plan isn’t necessarily crushed beyond repair, or maybe it can be a six-year plan instead, and that’s fine! Yes, of course, the effects of the pandemic are challenging and will require us to work out of our comfort zones to adapt, but all is not completely lost. And if you can intervene in those thought patterns, you are carving out the space for a new belief to take hold, perhaps even one that’s hopeful.

Remember that you can still control some things in your life.

Being hopeful relies partly on having a sense of control; it’s the idea that you can exert an influence on the world around you and that the actions you take can have positive consequences in your life. But, obviously, there are some situations that are really and truly out of your control, like losing a loved one or, say, living through a global pandemic.

In those cases, you’ll need to draw on resilience. “Being resilient might also mean having an acceptance of the things that are beyond your control or beyond your ability to influence,” Tedeschi says. “Instead, look for another course of action that relieves some of the unpleasant emotions of the situation, especially in the case of loss.”

Taking some control could include elements of your self-care routine that you’re already doing—like furthering your yoga practice (at home). Or you might need to go beyond that. For instance, many people find that simple, small acts of compassion—like making cloth masks or going grocery shopping for your vulnerable neighbors—help build that sense of control even in a chaotic situation like this, Tedeschi says. “To be able to make their lives a little easier might allow you to see there is some action that you can take,” he says. “You’re not dead in the water here.”

Reminder: You don’t need to literally solve the entire pandemic to be helpful! And seeing that you do still have the agency to make an impact, however small, may be just what you need to cultivate more hopeful thoughts and behaviors that promote them.

Lean into honest, authentic connections.

It’s really hard to become more hopeful if you don’t have the space to acknowledge that you’re having a hard time with that right now. That’s why the first step of building hope (and resilience) is to look your situation head-on and acknowledge the true terribleness of it, ideally with other people who are skilled active listeners, Tedeschi says, meaning people who are truly engaged and empathetic.

“If we can do that with people who are really good listeners and reflect together with us on how to figure all this stuff out,” he says, we can actually improve our coping mechanisms, learn important lessons about ourselves, or manage to find some sort of meaning in all of this. Getting something like that out of the situation will obviously continue to help us as we move forward, but it might also make things feel less hopeless currently.

Having relationships with people in which you feel safe enough to have open, vulnerable conversations about what you’re dealing with—and being able to work through those feelings together in a productive way—is the real key, the experts tell SELF.

If you already have those people in your life, make it a point to have regular check-ins with them to talk about the serious shit you’re going through. And don’t underestimate the power of being a listener, Comas-Diaz says. Think of yourself like a witness, collaborator, or helper to get your friends through whatever issues they’re coming up against, and you might notice that has benefits for you as well. “This transcends psychology,” she says. “It is being human.”

But if you don’t already have those close relationships, there are ways to build them. Perhaps you have people in your circle of friends you’d like to be closer with. In that case you could try starting a virtual support group with them—and you might be surprised at how many people are interested. This is an idea that has real research behind it, such as this study, published last year in Development and Psychopathology. For the study, researchers randomly assigned 23 women to take part in a support group that met 12 times over a few months using video conferencing software. Results showed that many of the participants found the groups incredibly valuable for building authentic connections and dedicating time to focus on their emotional well-being—even though the groups were virtual.

For those who are having a really hard time seeing anything hopeful right now, it may be helpful to work with a therapist on this, Tedeschi says. That will give you someone who can allow you the space to voice those concerns and vulnerabilities and help you find ways to work through them. They might guide you through those reframing exercises, for instance, or help you become more aware of those negative thought patterns and the effects they are having on the rest of your life. Traditional in-office therapy probably isn’t going to be an option right now, but there are a ton of teletherapy options instead, including text, phone, and video-chat versions.

For some people it’s always hard to be hopeful. But right now just about everyone is finding it challenging to maintain any semblance of a positive outlook. Still, it’s not impossible—and may just be the key to mentally surviving a crisis like this.

Source: Saran Jacoby for SELF