This is a short YouTube microchapter by Brian Johnson introducing the science of hope. Drawing on Rick Schneider’s 'Psychology of Hope' and Sonia Lyubomirsky’s work, Johnson outlines three components of grounded, resilient hope—goals, agency, and pathways—and emphasizes having a clear goal, belief in one’s ability to act, and flexible plans that adapt to obstacles. He frames hope as essential for eudaimonic/heroic flourishing and previews a follow-up tip to boost hope.
Chapters
Hi, this is Brian. Welcome back to another Arete One Degree, one of my all time favorite ideas that is featured in my new book Arete Activate youe Heroic potential, which has 451 of my all time favorite ideas. I hope you love the book if you decide to get it. For now, this is truly one of my all time favorite ideas that I'd come back to more than any other idea. Tied for first, perhaps, but. But with the Heroic app, with the coaching certification program we have, we come back to the science of hope over and over again. So here's the microchapter Hope goals plus Agency plus Pathways now that we've explored some ideas on gratitude, it's time to talk about hope. This is one of my favorite virtues and not just because it's in my own top five. First, let's pause and think about the opposite of hope. What is it? Hopelessness, of course. It's really hard to live with eudaimonic heroic joy if we feel hopeless. Which is why understanding and mastering the science of how to cultivate a grounded, resilient sort of hope is so important. Now we have Rick Schneider to thank for pioneering the scientific exploration of hope. In his great book, the Psychology of Hope, Professor Schneider walks us through the three key aspects of cultivating a grounded, resilient kind of hope. First, we need a goal. Second, we need a sense of agency. And third, we need pathways. It all always starts with a clear goal. We need a vision of a better future. Aristotle tells us that we are teleological beings. Telos means target. He tells us that we need to have goals or targets at which we're directing our life force. Modern positive psychologist Sonia Lybomirsky echoes that ancient wisdom in her great book, the how of Happiness. She tells us that happy people have projects, whether that's cultivating a garden or raising your children or launching a rocket to Mars. So how about you? What's your number one most inspiring target goal right now? Seriously, what goal makes you want to get out of bed and have an awesome day again? It all starts with seeing a better future and having a specific goal that fires you up. But having a goal isn't enough. We need to believe we can actually turn that dreamt for vision into reality. That requires what scientists call agency. Agency is essentially a belief in our ability to make things happen, a sense of self efficacy or self confidence. We're going to talk about this a lot as well. Then we need to create a pathway or a plan to achieve that goal. And very importantly, we need to know that as they say in the military, no plan survives first contact with the enemy. In other words, we need to expect to hit obstacles and be willing to explore multiple pathways. Plan A doesn't work perfect. Alchemize the lessons into plan B. That doesn't work perfect. Repeat. That's pathways thinking. And that's a quick look at the three key aspects of grounded, resilient hope. Now it's time to look at my all time favorite way to boost our hope in our next one degree. We're going to talk about. Whoop.
