27 Ways to Find HOPE: During Difficult Times

We all need hope during dark times, difficult relationships, and daily struggles. Sometimes it can be helpful to have a few tools in your back pocket during those hard times. Save these page for later when you really need some tips to find hope! Here is 27 ways to find HOPE during difficult times.

Important: This article has resources about restoring wellness, and is based on my research and my experiences. This information is not meant to take the place of counseling or therapy. If at any time you feel uncomfortable or need to talk to someone, wellness resources can help you find a counselor and resources that may be helpful.

ULTIMATE HOPE LIST

I created 2 FREE Printables and put them together in this ULTIMATE HOPE LIST!

The ULTIMATE HOPE LIST can help you:

get inspired
be creative
and have motivation to live fully towards your dreams!

I hope you enjoy these HOPE-filled ACTIVITIES & TIPS as mush as I do!!

GET 2 Printables in 1 FREE Download

You get 2 PRINTABLES in 1 FREE Download in the ULTIMATE HOPE LIST!!

17 Ways to FIND HOPE

+ 10 HOPE Activities

Hopeless, Struggles and Help

Without hope, there is darkness of a tragic loss. You feel hopeless and maybe even powerless. It’s like death is overshadowing all things living for awhile.

This feeling can come and go, as you’re able to find your way through the hopelessness cavern toward light again.

When struggling to find hope, you may feel:

Sad, gloomy, and/or depressed
Limited choices and declining support
Out of control and powerless

Hopelessness feels like powerlessness, and can be overwhelming and out of control.

Do you feel hopeless?

Keep reading to find hope, seek hope, and gain hope.

Hopeless Situations

During times of hopelessness, you may feel desperate for relief, for solutions, for hope.

Hopeless situations may be:

grieving the death of a person you knew
despairing, or despondent
discouraging

Help for the Hopeless

There are people who want to help you, to be there for you during these difficult times, and to help you find a solution.

These helping professionals are trained to help.

Who to Call for Hope:

Suicide Lifeline: The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline 1-800-273-TALK.
Counselors: provide support & guidance, empowering and equipping with coping skills to survive and thrive. Find a therapist @ www.psychologytoday.com/us
Spiritual Directors: walk alongside you on your spiritual journey, helping you tell your sacred story. Find a Spiritual Director @ www.sdiworld.org
Disaster Distress Helpline: The Disaster Distress Helpline, 1-800-985-5990, is a 24/7, 365-day-a–year, national hotline dedicated to providing immediate crisis counseling for people who are experiencing emotional distress related to any natural or human-caused disaster. This toll-free, multilingual, and confidential crisis support service is available to all residents in the United States and its territories. Stress, anxiety, and other depression-like symptoms are common reactions after a disaster. Call 1-800-985-5990 or text TalkWithUs to 66746 to connect with a trained crisis counselor.

Why is HOPE Important?

There’s good news, keep reading for 17 ways to find hope + 10 hope activities!! Here we go!!

It’s amazing when you have hope, it can seem as though a miracle has happened. The light streams in against the darkness and you see the possibilities for good again.

Hope Tip #1: Hope changes your perspective and allows for healing and wholeness for yourself and for others.

With hope, you find happiness and meaning to…

Get help to change for the better
Stop harmful patterns of behavior
Be motivated to grow and to love

Hope Tip #2:
Hope gives you the motivation to change, grow, and live fully.
Beth @ MooreWellness.Life

I need hope to get inspired, be creative, and to have motivation to live fully towards my dream.

When I want to get excited about a new beginning or new journey, I pull up my hope and let it flow freely! The key for me is knowing where to find hope!

Where do you find hope when you need it?

Where Do We Find HOPE?

Great question! Because Hope is not something we can easily see or feel sometimes. Therefore, where do we find hope and how can we get it?

Hope Tip #3: Find Hope in hopeful people, places, and things.

That may sound too simple and too easy. Well, why not try it?

Give hope a try!

What is hope?

Hope Tip #4:
Hope helps us move forward.
Beth @ MooreWellness.Life

3 Secrets About Hope

Here are 3 secrets about hope. First, finding hope helps you move forward. Second, if you have a little hope, it is easier then to gain more hope. Third, creating hope is possible.

Hope is…

Sharon Blake is a survivor of homelessness, addiction, prostitution, and domestic violence. She defines hope as a “Hope is an optimistic attitude of mind based on an expectation or desire.”

Let’s break this definition down into actionable items:

Hope is an Optimistic Attitude

Hope Tip #5: If you decide you want to be hopeful, you are more likely to find hope.

Attitudes matter. Your attitude is your way of thinking or feeling about something or someone, and many times your attitude is expressed in your behavior. So, how can you express hope in your behavior?

Look for hope

Hope Activity: Look Around You

Look around the space you are in right now, find as many red things as possible in 20 seconds. How many did you find?

Ok, without peeking, which means no more looking. How many green things did you see? You may not know exactly how many green things were in the space around you, because you were not looking for green things.

The more you look for something, the more you will find it.

Hope Tip #6:
The more you look for something,
the more you will find it.
Beth @ MooreWellness.Life

Do you think you can find hope?

Surround yourself with optimism.

Lori Lynn Smith shares How to Find Hope When You Are Really Depressed. One of the strategies to find hope is to surround yourself with optimism.

Find Optimism

Hope Tip #7: Find Optimism & Grow in Optimism. Optimism builds hope.

Hope Activity: Find Optimistic People & Groups

Find optimistic people & groups, hang out with them, laugh with them, absorb the positivity. The more others laugh, the more you will laugh. Smiling and laughing are contagious. Think of 1 group of optimistic people, where do they hang out? Make it a goal to go hang out with them once in the next week or few weeks.

Find Hope in Supportive Friends

Hope Tip #8: Positive people are fun to be around, they help us feel happy and think positively.

Hope Activity: Choose 3 Optimistic People

Write down 3 optimistic people you would like to hang around with sometime in the near future. Writing it down will actually help you get closer to your goal.

Hope Tip #9: Just by noticing other’s positivity, you are already practicing being more positive.

Hope Activity: Notice positive talk by positive people.

While hanging out with positive people, notice how many positive things one positive person will talk about. This can help you practice being more positive as well.

Hope in God, Hope in a Higher Power

Psychology Today mentions turning to your faith in God to find hope. Your faith can be a stepping stone to finding your hope.

What is the difference between hope and faith?

Faith can be believing in God, trusting and having confidence in God, someone, or something. So, having faith means believing and trusting that you will have hope.

Hope Tip #10:
Faith is believing in the present time,
hope is believing in the future.
Beth @ MooreWellness.Life

Hope Activity: Choose 3 things you have faith and/or hope in

What do you have faith in right now? What do you have hope in for the future? Write down 3 things you have faith and/or hope in currently.

Hopeful & Positive Mind

Training our brain to think positively may take practice.

It is natural in our hurried world to notice the negative, to react more to the negative, and to focus on the negative. Maybe we do it to survive, maybe we do it to fit in, maybe we do it out of habit.

Hope Tip #11: It takes practice to train our brains to think positively. Hope grows off of positivity.

Here’s a few ways to train your brain to think positively.

Positive Mindset

Positive (optimistic) thoughts lead to more positive actions which lead to more positive outcomes. Negative thoughts lead to more negative outcomes.

Hope Activity: 10-Minute Positive Mindset

For 10 minutes, make a choice to intentionally think about positive things and notice how it helps you positive mindset.

Hope Tip #12:
Positive thoughts lead to positive actions, which leads to positive outcomes.
Beth @ MooreWellness.Life

Attitude of Gratitude

Hope Tip #13:
The more grateful we are, the more opportunities we find. Hope is built on gratitude and opportunities.
Beth @ MooreWellness.Life

Courtney Carver shares 10 Places to Find Hope.

One of those places to find hope is practicing being grateful. When you look around at how many blessings you have each day, it can bring great hope your way daily.

Hope Activity: Gratitude Attitude Journal

Every day for 1 week, write down one thing you are grateful for every day. Start with something super easy to be grateful for, then see if you can add one thing a day. Make it super easy so you can succeed.

If this exercise is too easy, then challenge yourself to up the level, try 5 things a day or 10 things a day and go up from there. At the end of the week, reflect on how easy or hard it was to think of things to be grateful for.

Did practicing gratitude help you find more things to be thankful about? Do you feel more hopeful?

Hope Tip #14:
Attitude of Gratitude brings Hope!
Beth @ MooreWellness.Life

Hopeful Expectations

Hope from past experiences

Expectations are a strong belief that something will happen in the future.

Hope Tip #15:
Hope is believing in the future,
Expectations are a strong belief that something will happen in the future.
Beth @ MooreWellness.Life

We usually form our expectations from our pervious experiences and knowledge. Say you fell out of a tree when you were climbing it. You might be more cautious next time you want to climb a tree. Your expectations of climbing a tree might now include having some extra safety measures in place before you climb that big tree.

Hope Activity: Hopeful Past Experiences

Think about past experiences where you have been hopeful. Write down a summary of this hopeful experience. How did that hope get you through hard times? How did hope change your perspective and help you move forward?

Remember hopeful experiences

This also applies to the positive expectations, as we can choose to practice remembering hopeful experiences.

Hope Tip #16:
Remember hopeful experiences to have more hopeful experiences.
Beth @ MooreWellness.Life

Hope Activity: Mindfulness Positive Experience

When something goes well or great this week, intentionally practice remembering the positive experience.

Concentrate on a few key details during this positive experience:

Consider your feelings
Notice your relationship to the people & places around you
Focus on the meaning of the positive experience in your life

One Key to Hope

All these things have one thing in common. They all draw from hope within and around us.

Hope Tip #17: So to find hope, it helps to draw positivity from positive people, places, and things.

Hope Activity: Ultimate List of Hope

Make a list of all the ways you find hope. Include all the people, places, and things where you draw your hope & positivity from. Keep this list near your bed or desk. When you are feeling down or need a reminder of how to find hope, you can look at this list that you created! Great job!

What do you hope for?

Every year, I look forward to spring and the new flowers, the butterflies, and the baby animals! Spring resembles new hope for what is to come, new birth of ideas, and new life. It’s one of my favorite times of year!!

What do you hope for right now?

What is your favorite Hope Tip or Activity?

I’d love to hear what your favorite Hope Tip or Activity is and how it helps you. Leave a comment at the bottom of this article, or leave a message for me in one of these Moore Wellness communities.

Join Moore Wellness Tribe today! <– Blog Tribe
Moore Wellness Facebook <– FaceBook page
Beth | MooreWellness.LIfe <– Pinterest page 🙂
Moore Wellness, LLC <– Instagram page

SUMMARY OF THIS ARTICLE:

Hopeless, Struggles and Helplines
Why is Hope Important?
Where do we find hope?
What is Hope?
Spring is coming!

ULTIMATE HOPE LIST

I created 2 FREE Printables and put them together in this ULTIMATE HOPE LIST!

The ULTIMATE HOPE LIST can help you:

get inspired
be creative
and have motivation to live fully towards your dreams!

I hope you enjoy these HOPE-filled ACTIVITIES & TIPS as mush as I do!!

GET 2 Printables in 1 FREE Download

You get 2 PRINTABLES in 1 FREE Download in the ULTIMATE HOPE LIST!!

17 Ways to FIND HOPE

+ 10 HOPE Activities

Download: Ultimate HOPE List

You can find hope in your daily life with the ULTIMATE HOPE LIST.

This ULTIMATE HOPE LIST can help improve your wellness journey!

DOWNLOAD the free ULTIMATE HOPE LIST

Read about how to find & create hope in this blog article:

Blog Post: 17 Ways to Find Hope during Difficult Times + 10 Hope Activities

How do you FIND HOPE?

I’d love to hear what BRINGS you HOPE?

Share it with me! See how to stay connected…

Let’s keep sharing HOPE 🙂

Stay Connected

I’d love to stay connected with you, here’s a few ways to connect to me and our community:

Join Moore Wellness Tribe today! <– Blog Tribe
Moore Wellness Facebook <– FaceBook page
Beth | MooreWellness.LIfe <– Pinterest page 🙂
Moore Wellness, LLC <– Instagram page

Connect with me & share how you find HOPE.

Join the Moore Wellness Tribeand be the first to hear about wellness tips, coping skills, and life-giving resources.

Have a blessed day 🙂
Beth

Need help finding a counselor?

If you need someone to help to talk to, counselors and mental health professionalscan help provide support resources on:

time management
stress management
procrastination
relaxation skills
goal setting
personal development