How Hope is Different From Optimism

Hope is different than optimism. It’s better.

If you’ve been following my posts lately, I’ve been discussing how hope (as measured using the Adult Hope Scale) acts a personal resource against burnout, low job satisfaction, and PTSD, for example.

For most people, the science of hope is a new concept. We use hope as if it were a wish - “I hope it doesn’t rain” or “I hope you’re feeling better.” Nice sentiments, but not much else because you don’t have control over a wish. In essence, you’re being optimistic about the future.

Optimism has its place, but it is different than hope. What makes it different is that optimism is out of your control. Optimism relies on luck or fate or karma or someone else in order to bring out the results.

Hope puts the power in your hands to pursue the desired goal. Better yet, hope measures your ability to think of multiple routes (i.e., pathways) to your goals while also measuring your motivation to achieve the goals - particularly when obstacles present themselves.

Most of us can use a little optimism but all of us can use more hope!

If you find my posts about hope helpful, please share so more people can learn about the science and power of hope.

If I can help you learn more about how to use hope to protect against job demands, burnout, and other related matters, please contact me at chris@mrchrisfreeze.com.

Chris

(Adapted from Rand, K. L. (2018). Hope, self-efficacy, and optimism: Conceptual and empirical differences. In M. W. Gallagher & S. J. Lopez (Eds.), The Oxford handbook of hope (pp. 45-58). Oxford University Press.)

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