How to be more hopeful: what the evidence supports

What actually makes someone more hopeful?

Hope is one of 24 character strengths in the classification assembled by Christopher Peterson and Martin Seligman, grouped under six broad virtues rather than recovered from personality data (Peterson & Seligman, 2004). It sits under transcendence, the strengths that connect a person to something beyond the present moment, and it is treated as something used on purpose rather than a tendency you simply happen to have. Hope: the character strength, explained covers the definition in full.

The strength itself is a compound of two things: an expectation that the future can be better than the present, and a sense that there is a route to get there, sometimes called the will and the way. The first half moves slowly and looks closer to a stable disposition. The second half, the route, is the part that responds to deliberate work, which is why the practices further down are all built around naming a step rather than adjusting a mood.

In a survey of 5,299 adults, hope was one of five strengths, alongside zest, gratitude, love and curiosity, consistently and robustly associated with life satisfaction, while the intellectual strengths and modesty were only weakly related to it (Park et al., 2004). That correlation does not show hope caused the satisfaction it travelled with, since the survey was cross-sectional and self-reported. It is still one of the more consistent findings in the strengths literature, and it is the reason hope gets singled out among the 24 rather than a claim that raising it a little rewrites a life.

How does hope relate to Emotional Stability?

Hope is not the same dimension as Emotional Stability, but the two sit close together, because expecting the worst is near the core of low Emotional Stability, and hope's forecast leans the other way. Emotional Stability and Neuroticism, explained covers that trait in full. In short, it is the tendency to stay calm under pressure and recover quickly once something has gone wrong, and it is scored from several narrower facets, including Calmness, Equanimity and Imperturbability.

The overlap is a reading rather than a measured crosswalk. None of the research behind either construct used the same inventory for both. Where the two meet in practice is the forecast itself: a steadier baseline makes it easier to hold a difficult prediction without it curdling into dread, and a hopeful forecast makes a hard moment easier to ride out without a lasting spike in worry. How to be more emotionally stable covers the practices that work on that trait directly, including reappraisal and specific plans, and several of them reappear below in a version built around a forecast rather than a feeling.

What changes hope: the evidence on using a strength deliberately

The clearest lever is behavioural: using a strength in a new way, rather than reading about it. A meta-analysis pooling 29 effect sizes from 14 articles found signature strengths interventions raised life satisfaction (g = 0.42) and positive affect (g = 0.32) and lowered reported low mood (g = 0.21), small to moderate effects (Schutte & Malouff, 2019). The evidence base behind those figures is still small, and the effects measured are short-term rather than proof of a permanently changed disposition.

Behind that literature sits a randomised, placebo-controlled online study that tested five purported happiness exercises against a plausible control. Three of the five lastingly increased happiness and decreased reports of low mood, and two did not (Seligman et al., 2005). Which exercise you pick therefore matters, and the common thread in the practices below is that each asks for something done rather than something read: for hope, naming the route, not only wishing for the outcome.

Wanting to change matters, and it is not the whole story. Across two 16-week studies, people who set out to change a trait tended to move in that direction, and a version of the intervention that trained participants to build specific if-then plans helped more than a simpler one that just encouraged trying harder (Hudson & Fraley, 2015). Applied to hope, that favours a concrete plan, such as if the first application is turned down, then two more go out by Friday, over a general resolution to think more positively.

None of this happens overnight. A systematic review of 207 intervention studies found personality trait measures moving by about a third of a standard deviation over roughly six months, largest for Emotional Stability, and drawn mostly from therapy and counselling trials (Roberts et al., 2017). Hope was not itself one of the tracked traits in that review, but the pace it describes, real movement over months of structured work rather than days, is the honest expectation to bring to any of the practices below.

Does your coping style affect how hopeful you can stay?

Coping researchers do not treat coping as a single choice between fixing a problem and feeling better about it. A widely used inventory separates it into more than a dozen distinct strategies, from active coping and planning to positive reinterpretation, acceptance and denial, because people who look similar on a broad problem-versus-emotion split often do quite different things in practice (Carver et al., 1989).

That distinction matters for hope because two of the named strategies point in opposite directions. Planning and active coping are close cousins of the route half of hope: naming a next step and taking it. Denial is a separate, named strategy in the same inventory, and it is worth being clear that it is not the same thing as hope, even though both can look, from the outside, like refusing to panic. The difference between them is worth holding onto, and it is the subject of the next section.

What is the difference between hope and denial?

Hope is compatible with an accurate reading of the situation. It says the future can be better and there is a route, while still counting the odds correctly. Denial says the problem is not really there, or is smaller than it is, so that nothing about it needs a route at all.

The practical test is what happens when new information arrives. A hopeful forecast updates: if the first plan is not working, a hopeful person revises it and tries something else, because the optimism was never a bet on that one plan. A forecast built on denial does not update easily, because updating it means admitting the problem was real, which is the thing it was built to avoid. That is also part of why hope tends to hold up under pressure, while denial tends to collapse suddenly once the gap between the story and the facts gets too wide to ignore.

A related test is what the forecast asks of you. Hope asks for a next action, however small. Denial asks for nothing, which is part of what makes it comfortable in the short run and expensive later.

What are some specific exercises for hope?

None of these need a course to start. Each targets a moment where a hopeful forecast and a bleak one are both still available, and most work on the route half of hope rather than the general expectation, which is the part deliberate practice actually reaches.

These are exercises for an hour or a week, not a rewrite of a disposition. The trait-level movement described above takes months of practice of this kind, not one sitting with the list.

How does Wellington measure hope?

Wellington is a science-based personality assessment from Therabot Labs LLC. It measures personality as continuous traits, built on the Big Five and HEXACO models, and writes the results back as a personal report rather than a type.

The free Snapshot is 60 questions, about 7 minutes, and scores six broad dimensions including Emotional Stability. Hope is not one of those six. It is scored separately as one of the 24 character strengths, from 6 statements rated on a five-point accuracy scale, and it is one of the 90 traits with the membership, alongside every Big Five facet and all 24 strengths. Hope: the character strength, explained covers what the strength measures and how the report writes it up in full.

Your average is placed against a reference sample as a percentile. Every trait is reported as a percentile against the reference sample. The three bands (Quiet below the 30th percentile, Balanced to the 70th, High above) and the Portrait names exist to make the result easier to talk about; the percentile is the measurement, and it is always shown alongside. Norms are provisional until the norming sample is complete.

Wellington is a wellness tool for reflection, not a medical or psychological diagnosis, and it does not replace care from a qualified professional. It is not designed for hiring, and you can export or delete your data at any time.

Questions people ask

How do I build hope?

Work on the route rather than the forecast. Name the next concrete step, and a second route in case the first closes. The general evidence is that structured exercises help: three of the five tested in one randomised study produced lasting gains and two did not (Seligman et al., 2005), and pooled studies of signature strengths interventions show small, consistent effects (Schutte & Malouff, 2019).

Is hope the same as being optimistic?

They overlap. A general expectation that good things will happen is only half of what hope, as a character strength, describes. The other half is agency and a route: not only that things will go well, but that you can get there and there is a way. Practice tends to reach the route half faster than the general expectation.

Can I actually stop being pessimistic, or is it fixed?

It can shift, modestly. A systematic review found trait measures moving by about a third of a standard deviation over roughly six months during structured interventions, mostly therapy and counselling (Roberts et al., 2017). Separately, wanting to change was followed by measured change over 16 weeks, and specific if-then plans helped more than general intentions (Hudson & Fraley, 2015).

Isn't hoping for the best just wishful thinking?

Not if the route half is doing its job. Wishful thinking stops at the forecast. Hope, as it is usually measured, adds a concrete next step and updates the plan when new information arrives, which is the opposite of holding a story that will not budge.

What if my plan does not work, should I keep hoping anyway?

Keep the expectation, change the plan. A hopeful forecast is not a bet on one specific route, so a failed attempt is information to revise the plan with, not a reason to drop the forecast. Denial is the pattern that clings to the plan rather than updating it.