Making Hope Happen: Create the Future You Want for Yourself and Others by Shane J. Lopez Page A

in the tradition of overconfidence, the head of the investment firm—and the traders themselves—simply disregarded what the statistics showed. “Facts that challenge such basic assumptions—and thereby threaten people’s livelihood and self-esteem—are simply not absorbed,” concluded Kahneman. “We are normally blind about our own blindness. We’re generally overconfident in our opinions and our impressions and judgments. We exaggerate how knowable the world is.”
Exercising a Bit of Control over the Future in the Sweet Spot of Hope
    What all of this means is that genuine hope lives in a psychological sweet spot, and it requires a very special kind of mental balancing act. In the sweet spot, our thinking about the future overlaps with our thoughts about what needs to happen today. In the sweet spot, we believe in our ability to make the future better than the present, while at the same time we recognize the limits of our control.
    When we live in the sweet spot, we acknowledge that we don’t have access to all of our thought processes and that we can’t always predict our feelings. That puts a premium on the small chunk of our thinking and behavior that directs our active attempts to shape the future in a meaningful way. We try to learn as much as we can about the situation we face, but we’re aware that we can’t wait until we know everything to act. We are alert to the difference between helpful critiques and challenges (which we can use as tools) and the messages that create doubt and sap our energy. We also know that the better we get at understanding our cues, habits, and thought processes, the more we can energize ourselves and others.
    Messages That Undermine Hope
    Start moving ahead with big plans and high energy and you are almost certain to stir up the naysayers. So brace yourself. Sometimes the negative messages come from people around you right now. Sometimes they’re voices from the past. And sometimes they come from a part of you that is daunted by what lies ahead. To stay in the sweet spot of hope, you need to identify them for what they are.
    You might hear from others: “You are a dreamer.” “You can’t fight city hall.” “What makes you think you can do that?” ButI believe this kind of commentary usually reflects more on the speaker than on you or your plans. I’ve never known a high-hope person to try shaming someone else into a “more realistic” vision of the future. More often, high-hope people will honor your dreams or be quick to help you develop new ones.
    Maybe you hear the message in your own voice: “There’s nothing I can do about it anyway.” “I’m too busy to think about that now.” Sounds familiar?In my own head I sometimes still hear Doris Day singing, “Que Será, Será (Whatever Will Be, Will Be).” “It will work out somehow.” If you recognize these thoughts, then acknowledge the fear they’re coming from, and remind yourself that even the smallest effort to move forward chips away at that fear.
    Bottom line: negative messages are no more “realistic” than your highest goals, and they rob you of agency.
Taking a Stake in the Future
    One of the most hopeful—and riskiest—things we do in life is to have children. I know parents who start saving for their child’s college tuition in the first trimester of pregnancy. Some of us commit more time to picking our children’s preschools and elementary schools than we spent choosing our own colleges or shopping for our family homes. The truth is, I find myself thinking about my son’s college choices almost every day—even though he only recently lost his first baby tooth.
    Two of the smartest people I know are economists and colleagues of mine. They have full knowledge of the psychological and economics research that says that our behavior as parents doesn’t matter as much as we like to think it does. I know—I don’t like the idea of that, either—but the evidence is clear.Our small parental