What to do when you are Hopeless | Get a new Start

1 – Reassess the Situation

Sometimes, in order to avoid losing hope, it takes a reassessment of the situation. Although we might think we wanted a certain thing in life, if something prevents us from getting it, we tend to react in one of two ways. Either we give up and throw our hands in the air in silent resignation or we push through the hurt and the pain until we get what we want. However, not all of us can keep up the good fight all the time, and it’s easy to get discouraged.

So, sometimes we need to reassess the situation.

We need to see if that’s something we really wanted that badly in life. Because, when we set goals or we have some hope or dream that we’re driving towards, we have to ensure that we addressed the three W’s of goal setting: What, Why, and When. If we didn’t have a strong enough reason why we wanted to achieve something, then we might have subconsciously given up on that goal long before we consciously realized it.

Go back and reassess the situation.

Did you really want it that badly? If you did or you do, then what can you do towards the attainment of it?

Sometimes, what we don’t realize is that, we might fail to achieve something in order to open ourselves up to something even greater. So, be sure to look at the situation from a different light. You might end up seeing something you didn’t see before, even if it hurts right now.

2 – Harbor Gratitude

The second way that you can avoid losing hope in life is to harbor gratitude. All too often, we look to those in life that have more than us rather than less than us. But, did you know that five children die every minute around the world due to starvation and hunger-related illnesses.

It’s easy to look to those with more, but far harder to look to those with less.  

Our society is very fixated on those with more, but we have to retrain ourselves to look to those with less rather than more. It’s something that can help to realign us with our hopes and our dreams in life. Even if we’ve failed at something or we’ve nearly lost all hope, when we can take things in perspective, we can begin to appreciate life on a far greater level. 

3 – Be Honest with Yourself

One of the best ways to avoid losing hope in a situation is to always be honest with yourself. No matter what it is that you hope or dream for in life, as long as you’re honest with yourself, you can avoid a catastrophic situation should whatever you hope for end failing on you. When you’re honest along the way, you’re not lying to yourself about the severity of a situation.

Honesty breeds awareness, which in turn breeds adjusting your approach…

When you can change your approach along the way, you can move towards your goals much quicker because you won’t find yourself surprised suddenly if things don’t end up working out. You can modify the way you tackle a situation to best deal with it. Always be honest in all situations… it will breed a much happier and healthier path towards your goals.

4 – Look to Others for Support

Sometimes, the best way to take stock of the positives that we can gain from a situation that might seem bleak, is through the support of others. Whether it’s friends, family members, religious denominations, or support groups, other people can help us to look at things in perspective and offer us a guiding light towards the shores of hope.

Sometimes, the sea can be choppy, but one thing to keep in mind is that, whatever it is you’re going through, others have gone through it before you. 

The bigger picture can be hard to see sometimes, but through the support of others we can all find our way. Whatever doesn’t kill us makes us stronger, so keep that hope burning strong in your heart. 

5 – Have a Little Faith

No matter what you believe in: God, Allah, Buda, or the Singular Universal Oneness that binds us all, by having faith, you can learn to understand that nothing is impossible to overcome. No situation, no matter how dire or bleak, can defeat you if you don’t let it. We are all a product of the lens of focus from our mind’s eyes. So, don’t allow things to defeat you. Instead, use your situation to fuel you.

Having faith is something that comes from within. Everyone has what it takes within them to get past any situation. Remember, Rome wasn’t built in a day, and countless people have failed more times than they’ve succeeded.

6. You’re still here

When you start to lose hope, life starts to get pretty overwhelming. Every single little thing that happens can start to become a big deal. But it’s at this juncture that it’s so important to remind yourself that you’re still here.There is amazing power in celebrating your victories, and the fact that you’re still here is a pretty big one. Whatever it is that has caused you to lose hope hasn’t ended you. It hasn’t crushed you. It hasn’t completely wiped you out. Don’t forget that you haven’t been completely blown out of the water. Your future is still intact and bright. And that is pretty awesome.

7. You are cared for

In losing hope, there seems to be two things that start to come along with it – isolation, and loneliness. You start to doubt whether or not anyone actually cares about you. You feel invisible. You feel like your struggles aren’t known or cared for.

And it’s funny to see how we react to that thought sometimes. We think, “well, by who?”. By quite a lot of people. If I started listing the fact that there are family members who care for you, the friends, God, even maybe people you don’t know that well, it may be of little consequence to you.

A lose of hope can be generated when someone you want to care for you or invest in you in a certain way, but doesn’t. That guy you’re keen on, that employer, that pastor, those co-workers, that group of people – because they don’t seem to care, you’re missing the fact that there is so much love around you. In fact, the reality may be that those people in fact do actually care, you’re just not receiving it the way you’re expecting maybe.

Don’t lose sight of the love in your world. If you’re not seeing it, really stop and think about it. You may be surprised, and no doubt helped, by those in your world who are there for you.

NB. Check out Does God Really Care? for some more thoughts on the struggle that question sometimes brings.

8. You have so much to give

When you’re feeling hopeless, you start to question your ability to invest in others. “Well, how can I give to others when I’m feeling like this?”

It sounds like you might be taking yourself for granted. Even in a tired or frustrated state, there is still so much in you that you give without you thinking about it. There is encouragement in you that is still able to come out of you, no matter how you’re feeling. There is a level of effort and intentionally that you are able to exhibit for others, even while you aren’t exactly where you want to be right now.

Don’t sell yourself short. Recognize your boundaries, yes, but don’t shortchange what you’re able to be, and in fact what you are already, giving in this moment right here.

9. You won’t see all the results now

When you’re going about building a career, very rarely does anyone ever successfully land a role as CEO straight off. You usually start by getting some sort of tertiary qualification, and upon completion, you then start applying for the positions at the bottom, and slowly but surely work your way to the top.

There is a day of small beginnings that can often leave us feeling frustrated. Maybe from that example, you see yourself at a certain level in your organization, wishing you were further ahead. Maybe you have a great dream in your heart that you want to see outworked, but right now your involvement just seems so small.

Great dreams require great effort, often over great amounts of time. You don’t go to the gym expecting instant results, you don’t put food in the oven expecting it to be ready instantaneously, and you don’t expect a child to leave the womb and instantly become a grown man. Likewise, don’t get discouraged because your completed dreams aren’t instantly before you.

Do not despise the day of small beginnings. This is all getting you where you need to go.

10. There is a bigger picture

You know if you were building a house, and you only were able to see the bathroom, you would be oblivious to everything else going on within the house. If you were a 2 dimensional stick figure trying to perceive a 3 dimensional object, you would only see it in various angles from a 2D perspective, in slivers.

Likewise, you currently only have a limited perspective. You have your “2 dimensional” perspective, from your experience, your vantage point, from this point in time, how you’re feeling right now. You can’t actually see everything that is going on, or will go on in the future.

In the wise words of Jethro from The Prince of Egypt (love that movie), “A single thread in a tapestry, though its colour brightly shines, can never see its purpose, in the pattern of the grand design”.

There is so much more around you. There is purpose beyond what you’re able to see happening right now.