Let’s talk about hope.
Here is my observation: There are two kinds of people – the ones who bring hope and the ones who live in it. Are you a creator who produces hope or one of many who just wish things could be different but does nothing to make it happen and just waits for circumstances to change?
Please do not misunderstand, hope is a good thing. It’s what makes people get up in the morning, believing that today may be the start of something beautiful. Without hope, life would be unbearable.
However, for the most part, people fail to understand that hope plays only a small role in one’s success. People think that hope entails waiting for people and circumstances to change in their favour. This is positive thinking at its worst. This misconception of hope turns life into a passive and senseless waiting game.
Hope Without Action
Hope without action takes you nowhere. Only action can bring results; thus, passive hoping can only lead to failed expectations, disappointment and further inactivity. What a lot of people don’t realize is the energy exerted on wishing and waiting for things we don’t have is ultimately wasted. People’s lives become stagnant and they are actually prevented from receiving what they hope for.
The sad thing about this is that people tend to romanticize the whole “hoping sans action” bit. People would create a dream for themselves and then simply waits for a sign from heaven. Of course, the sign doesn’t come so our dreamers either dreams up another wish to wait on or just give up the ghost altogether.
This kind of hoping can be a dead end. “Hoping for the best” is a sugarcoat for “There’s nothing you can do”, which is unacceptable. I do believe that we can only “hope for the best” if we have already done our best. Do not merely play the waiting game.
Waiting has become a way of life for most of us. We are conditioned to wait – we wait in line at the grocery, for the red light to go green, for the next train, for the approval of authorities, and so on. Most people still wait – in false hope – that things will finally change for the better.
Hope And Being Powerless
A person who just sits on hope is often powerless. The tendency is to offer up an excuse and pin everything on circumstance. There is a sense of being powerless due to the situation. We resist doing our best in such situations knowing that we may be subjected to failure. As a result, we depend on hope simply because it is easier. We give up our own power and then blame situations and other people if our hopes don’t pan out.
When we declare statements like, “I believe my fate is in God’s hands”, “The odds are against me”, “I have no choice; there is nothing I can do”, we are making ourselves believe in uncertainty. The statements above are nothing but assumptions. Assumptions are indefinite, vague and unproven. It would be very unwise not to do something and just wait or hope based on an incorrect assumption.
Businessmen speak a lot about a return on investment. They gamble, weigh the odds, the profit and loss. As many would agree, the successful ones are those who have seen potential in businesses that most people are likely to overlook. If we use the same concept in our lives, look past the assumptions that scare us from moving forward, then we can make a profitable life. If we act on anything we want regardless of the odds, then we don’t have to look back with questions, even if we failed or succeeded at it.
There is certainly nothing wrong with having hope and expectations. Nevertheless, if hope stops us from acting and living in the moment then that is a losing proposition.Dr Ken Onu is the CEO and founder of Attract Freedom.
He is an Eye Doctor with a vision to eradicate possibility blindness®
He is a keen speaker, communicator and entrepreneur. He is a co-author of the bestselling book "The Art and Science of Success".
For Free Videos, Pdf's, Audios, Insights, Ideas and transformational growth sign up at =>http://www.attractfreedom.com/
No comments:
Post a Comment