7 Scientifically Proven Ways to Feel More Optimistic About Your Future

Implement Them to Transform Your Outlook

How you perceive the future can greatly impact how you feel in the present.

This is because your internal sight is set through hope.

Even positive situations are hard to bear when hope is absent.

Several studies have shown that people with greater levels of hope are less likely to experience high levels of stress, depression, and anxiety.

American psychologist Charles Snyder, the creator of the hope theory, defines hope as the belief that your future will be better than the present and that you have the ability to make it happen.

It involves optimism and a can-do attitude.

According to hope theory, there’s 3 three distinct parts to hope:

• Goals. The desired outcome you want.
• Agency (willpower). The ability to stay motivated to meet your goal.
• Pathways. The specific routes you develop to meet your goals.

Without these, you’ll feel hopeless and less optimistic about what the future holds in store for you.

The 7 methods I’ll share in this story will reverse this state.

They’re scientifically proven to boost hope, thus making you feel happier and more optimistic about the future.

Let’s get into them…

1. Reflect on past wins

A study was conducted to test the impact of a gratitude-related writing intervention on state hope and happiness.

153 participants were initially asked to write about a current, meaningful, hoped-for outcome and complete state hope and happiness measures.

After this, the participants were randomly told to either gratefully remember a past hope that had been fulfilled or perform a control condition defined by the researchers.

The findings revealed that gratefully remembering prompts significant increases in hope and happiness.

This suggests remembering past wins is a great way to bolster your happiness in the present and hope for the future.

According to Benjamin Hardy, the most effective way to reflect on the past is to write down three specific wins you made at the end of each day.

It also helps to regularly reflect on the entire week, month, and year once they come to a close.

In the words of Benjamin Hardy, “This practice can help you go from feeling like your goals are always out of reach to feeling like you’re continually making progress.”

2. Pray

Studies have revealed that prayer can increase hope, optimism, self-esteem, and adaptability while decreasing feelings of depression.

But not all prayer is made equal…

In one study, participants were recruited online and completed a variation of six prayer types: adoration, confession, thanksgiving, supplication, reception, and obligatory prayer.

Measures of subjective well-being, such as self-esteem, optimism, meaning in life, and life satisfaction, were also administered.

The findings revealed three forms of prayer, in particular, consistently had positive relations with well-being measures, whereas the other three had negative or null relations.

Those three forms of prayer were adoration, thanksgiving, and reception.

This suggests prayers that are less egotistical and more focused on God tend to affect your levels of hope positively.

Now, I know what you’re thinking…

“I’m not religious though.”

That’s totally fine.

You don’t have to be.

The Oxford Dictionary defines prayer as “a solemn request for help or expression of thanks addressed to God.”

All you’re doing is quietly searching for fresh perspectives, energy, or reasons or simply expressing gratitude.

Try to set aside time to pray — it doesn’t have to be long.

Spending 5 minutes daily thinking good thoughts or sending positive energy to loved ones is enough to transform your future outlook and make you feel more optimistic.

3. Meditate

In August 2022, a study was conducted to test the role of goal mediation in resilience and hope among students.

The findings revealed there’s a positive relationship between resilience and hope and that goal mediation effectively enhances both.

Note goal mediation is simply a meditation technique specifically designed to attain goals. It’s about focusing on a single point or goal to enhance your positive energy to achieve the objective.

Set aside time to focus your mind on what you want.

Conceptualize the goal, develop a plan, and follow through to meet your objective.

This will significantly boost your levels of hope and optimism towards the future.

4. Try different strategies

According to hope theory, one of the key elements of hope is pathways.

This means hope requires you to be capable of finding different ways to achieve your goals.

In other words, high-hope people understand the path to any significant goal is littered with roadblocks, and it may require several attempts to arrive at your intended destination.

Low-hope people continually implement the same ineffective approaches despite not hitting their target.

According to Albert Einstein, they are insane. He said, “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”

If your first pathway to your goal doesn’t work, try something different.

Thomas Edison was demonstrating what it means to be high-hope when he said, “I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.”

Studies have shown a link exists between hope and creative thinking.

Whenever you feel like you’re struggling to make progress, figure out different ways you could overcome the obstacles ahead of you.

For example, when I made my goal to make $10,000 per month, I initially tried to achieve this objective with one income source, but it didn’t work out well for me.

Instead, I added two other income sources that didn’t require me to compromise my values (i.e., freedom, autonomy, and flexibility).

Try a different approach if what you’re currently doing doesn’t work.

5. Adapt your environment

As Benjamin Hardy says, “Your inputs determine your outlook.”

What you consume shapes your view of the world.

This is why consuming news stories constantly is a bad idea.

Such media is intricately designed to stimulate fear, which makes you more reactive.

It also hinders your creativity and ability to think deeply.

Another source of media to reduce your consumption of is social media…

Amanda Baughan, a graduate student who specializes in human-computer interaction at the University of Washington, conducted a study on how social media triggers a state of reduced self-reflection and narrowed attention.

Her finding suggests that platform designs are built to help us lose track of the time we spend on them and can heighten conflicts, causing us to feel upset with ourselves.

While social media can help you feel more connected and knowledgeable, it can also contribute to loneliness and disinformation.

The best solution is to reduce your consumption of it.

Do regular logouts.

Instead of consuming junk media, consider something that gives you more hope, like comedy.

Studies reveal that humor can positively affect psychological and physical well-being.

It also shows that having a sense of humor is a major component of high-hope individuals.

That said, next time you’re feeling down about the future, go and have a laugh.

6. Change how you see failure

How you view failure has much to do with your outlook on the future.

Low-hope people often see failure as permanent.

They generally opt to pursue easier tasks and are much less likely to persist in the face of challenges.

Carol Dweck defines such individuals as having a fixed mindset.

This means they’re of the belief their traits and abilities can’t be changed — hence, they see no reason for pursuing objectives they can’t do.

Thinking like this is bound to reduce your optimism for the future.

You’ve got to change how you see failure.

High-hope people, or individuals with a growth mindset, see failure as a learning opportunity.

They embrace difficult challenges as a way to experiment and use creative problem-solving.

It’s not about being right for them; it’s about development and growth.

By altering how you interpret failure, you experience setbacks differently.

You focus on how you could be better next time rather than your current limitations.

This is the mindset required for a more optimistic future.

Stop getting bummed out by your flops.

Focus on what you can do to improve.

7. Give others hope

According to Dr. Keltner, a professor from U.C. Berkeley, “We are biologically equipped to empathize, care-give, and, importantly, experience pleasure when providing support.”

In other words, one way to increase your optimism about the future is to give someone else hope and optimism about theirs.

Find a loved one who could do with a boost and give them something to look forward to.

As Martin Luther King Jr. once said, “We must accept finite disappointment but never lose infinite hope.”

Final thoughts

You must have hope to brighten the outlook of your future.

In this article, I gave you 7 science-backed ways to induce hope in your life. These include:

1. Reflecting on past wins 2. Prayer 3. Meditation 4. Trying different strategies 5. Adapting your environment 6. Changing how you see failure 7. Giving others hope

Try them to transform your outlook.

Thanks for reading!

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