Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the past two years have been laden with uncertainty. With things changing on a near daily basis, it became hard to focus on the future. How could you plan for a future when the world seemed to be changing minute by minute?

For many of us, the way to deal with this uncertainty was to shut off thoughts of the future altogether and focus only on what was right in front of us. This was a necessary coping mechanism. However, now that we have started settling into a sort of “new normal” and things aren’t quite as uncertain, we may be left still struggling to have hope for the future.

To ease us back into looking forward, we can start by focusing on a little hope every day. This means taking a moment each day to think about one thing that gives you hope. These hopes don’t have to be big things. They can be small hopes like, “My hope for today is that dinner will be great tonight because this is the second time I’m making this recipe” or “I have hope that I will feel recharged after game night with my friends on Friday”.

While this exercise is simple, it is not necessarily easy. Hope can be confused with a lot of things like gratitude, optimism and even making wishes. All of these things are important, but they are different than hope. Hope is the belief that something can happen or be made better and that you can make that a reality. Since nailing down hope can be challenging, we’ve come up with some jumping off points for things you can feel hopeful about:

• That something you are working on will turn out well
• That you will feel a certain way after an activity
• That something damaged can be fixed or healed
• That a situation can improve
• That you can learn something new
• That you or someone in your life will experience something positive

For this exercise, you can simply think, or speak out loud, something that gives you hope. You could also choose to write down one thing each day. (Writing it down will give you something to visit on days when thinking of a little hope is challenging.) 

Hope is an essential part of being human. Having hope helps us feel less stressed and helps us have grit and resilience when things get tough. When we have hope, we are happier and better able to look forward. Sometimes, though, we need a little help remembering all the things that give us hope, and that’s okay. Being intentional and thinking about what gives us hope allows us to develop a skill for being hopeful.