Paper Example on Hope - A Prism of Motivation in Dark Moments

Introduction

Hope is defined to be an optimistic determination towards meeting successful goals. It is a motivating power to those expectant of achieving set goals. Most people have considered hope to be an accompanying strength during desperate and dark moments. It gives them a reason to keep fighting with a belief that there will be light at the end of the tunnel. Charles Snyder, a renowned psychologist, stated that "A rainbow is a prism that sends shards of multi-colored light in various directions. It lifts our spirits and makes us think of what is possible. Hope is the same - a personal rainbow of the mind"(Lopez, S. J., Pedrotti, J. T., & Snyder, C. R. 2018).

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In Positive Psychology, hopefulness is composed of three constituents; Goals, Pathways, and Agency thinking. The three entail designation of valued goals, the ability to strategize on how to achieve those goals, and the capacity to motivate oneself towards those goals. Hope is categorized as realistic, utopian, chosen, or transcendent.

In a scenario where clients have been retrenched and have been jobless for a year with no success in their job search, application of the hope theory will play a key role. As a career counselor, the best type of hope to instill in the clients' minds is the Utopian hope. A hope researcher described that "The utopian hoper critically negates the present and is driven by the hope to affirm a better alternative" (Webb, D. 2013). This will make them hopeful for a better future and at the same time make them consider another alternative. The alternative can be engaging in manual jobs, practicing farming and other ways to keep them busy during their job search journey.

As a career counselor to the retrenched clients, the workshop concept outline for the career workshop would entail:

• Setting goals
• Strategy development towards goal achievement
• Self-reflection
• Identification of personal skills, interests, and style
• Visioning of a positive future with career potentials
• Factors that will support or hinder career development
• Implementation of the set strategies
• The importance of hope
• Drawbacks of hopelessness
• Stress management

Enabling behavior change

The above outline would encourage clients to reflect on their former accomplishments and identify troubling times and how they managed them. It will help them visualize their goals and set SMART goals (i.e. specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and timely goals). The clients will also be in a position of understanding hope and its importance towards career-building. This will motivate them to develop strategies, to implement and adapt them. They will also identify their likes in terms of interests and skills as well as realize components that will foster or hinder their dreams.

According to Charles Snyder, one can relate hope to the following modules; one needs to have fixated thoughts. For the case of retrenched clients, they should consider thinking of positive and focused results. The career counselor should, therefore, counsel them to do away with negativity in their minds and see the promising future. One must also come up with advanced approaches to aid in the achievement of dreams. Such clients should, therefore, think and implement strategies that will help them attain their goals. Finally, they need motivation toward these goals. Motivation comes from within a person. One should be in a position to persuade himself in his quest for victory. Believing in your ability develops a greater chance of hope and boosts goal-achievement easily.

Most human activities and their way of life are mentally goal-oriented. There are two major influencers of effort towards human goals; pathways thinking and agency thinking. Pathway thinking is the ability of a person to generate alternative ways from what is current to what is yet to come. It focuses on the ability to create different approaches that will lead to attaining the goal. Agency thinking, on the other hand, involves the assurance and the capability to use the many approaches to achieve the anticipated future. Key factors that promote agency thinking are confidence and progressive motivation.

Achieving a goal is simpler when one possesses encouraging emotions. Mostly barriers disrupt a goal achievement pathway thus lowering one's emotions. They become short term roadblocks to success. The key thing is to remain focused and stick to your route. If the barrier is too challenging then one can use a different route.

Pathway thinking requires people to ask themselves diverse questions for example, "What is going on? Where do I want to go? What is stopping me?" Consequently, such questions can arise from agency thinking; "Which strengths can I use to achieve my goal? Which aspects of my current situation work to my advantage? When was I successful in similar situations in the past and why?" Applying the use of these questions as a career counselor will help the clients realize where they are, where they want to go, and how they are going to reach their destination (Seligman, M. E., & Csikszentmihalyi, M. 2014).

Drawbacks to HOPE theory

Hope is always referred to as be an affirmative term. The only downside of hope is hopelessness, a state that should never happen to the next person. Hopelessness has adverse effects and dangerous results. It makes people susceptible to suicide caused by negative thinking and reducing them to becoming helpless beings. While diagnosing diseases, a state of hopelessness lowers the patient's ability to fight the illness. Charles Snyder Ph.D. stated that "hope is a powerful psychological asset in the face of a challenging environment." This explains why hopeless patients are unable to bear treatment and healing.

Hope is the expectation of rescue from an external party when you are in need. Hope does not mean that one suddenly emerges from a place of strength for his life to be changed, but it reduces the sense of self-efficacy and inspires passivity. Therefore, seeing the word hope being hung in your house or office is not an assurance of strength. It can also make one more destitute.

VIA Inventory of Strength

The Values in Action Inventory of strengths which was earlier termed as "Values in Action Inventory" is an assessment meant to ascertain one's personality and powers. The VIA charisma strengths include humankind, wisdom, integrity, transcendence, sobriety, and bravery. Humanity entails the aspect of compassion, love, and collective intelligence. Knowledge and wisdom involve inquisitiveness, creativeness, and yearning to learn. Integrity explains transparency, fairness, governance, and coordination. Transcendence, on the other hand, brings about the characteristic of appreciating magnificence, comedy, and religion while sobriety appreciates bravery and persistence.

Psychology researchers developed the VIA inventory of strengths in the United States in the year 2004, to identify the "right/wrong" character in people. It involved brainstorming an all-inclusive list of helpful individual traits with participants ranging from poets, religious leaders, and philosophers to artists. This was meant to include representatives from all cultures.

A questionnaire is a useful tool for any career counselor who wants to understand his clients' characters. A sample of the strength questionnaire to be used is as follows:

Statements

I always confess my faults I try to focus on the positive side of life I appreciate nature

I explore new thoughts I prefer teamwork to competition I enjoy being with people I control my emotions when I am anxious I learn from my mistakes I keep my promises

I create new art every week This helps in assessing the strengths that dictate the clients and why. Such a questionnaire reveals the respondent's way of thinking and actions when exposed to different situations. It also helps the respondent to understand himself better and develop his skills. Consequently, a career counselor can develop a questionnaire in the form of set questions for example;

Which character strengths do you consider to boost your professional connections?

Explain a situation when your strength saved you.

Which character do you possess that you think is the key determinant of your success?

Where do you see yourself in the next ten years?

The above tests play a key role in identifying one's strengths and weaknesses, their interests, and dislikes. The first step to appreciating our strengths is by identifying that they exist, focusing on them, and positively embracing them.

Advantages of questionnaires

Questionnaires are very easy to analyze since they involve observation and counting. They are also familiar to the respondents thus making them easier to be filled. They are effective in terms of cost, effort, and time since a lot of information can be gathered using a single sheet. Finally, questionnaires are simple to draft and answer.

Disadvantages of questionnaires

The use of questionnaires in a survey or a workshop can be useful but comes along with some drawbacks which include; insincere answers, blank questions, difficulty in reading the respondents' emotions and feelings, different interpretations, inability to analyze, and light responses. These factors may express difficulty in relying on questionnaires to make a certain decision.

Activities that aid in strength application

Several exercises can be conducted that can support character strength. As a career counselor you can suggest the following activities to your clients to help them start taking action:

Self-monitoring- this involves an exclusive observation of one-self in different states. The clients will take notes on when they apply their strengths and when they do not. They then examine themselves on what transpires before using their strengths, how they feel when using it, and how they reason during the act. The clients will also trail situations when they overuse their strengths, under-use, or even completely forget about them. They can also write down the different acts they did before, that expressed kindness. This exercise will, therefore, require a notebook and a pen for easiness.

Writing - this is an exploratory action that will involve articulating strengths through writing. This can be in the form of a letter, for example, an appreciation letter or an apology letter. The clients will need to write about their strengths which will reveal their interpersonal traits to the career counselor.

Strengths in innovative means - this is a strategy to help clients apply their strengths to creativity and vision. It allows for curiosity to find new paths of doing things, originality to come up with better ideas and perceptions to visualize positive outcomes. The clients will need to consider their key strengths and use them to perceive another new way.

Role models - this entails recognizing a role model and emulating that person. Mostly, learning is all about observation. The clients will try to act and think like their paragons or role models by imitating the positive qualities, such as kindness, confidence, mercy, and integrity. The career counselor should make clients understand that the greatest role models are the people around us who have mentored us to be what we are today.

Making a routine - clients need to develop a habit of using their strengths frequently. The more one makes it a habit, the more one understands himself and realizes his powers.

Picturing the future - this involves visioning your future using the current strength. Picture what is yet to come when you will have a lot to work on, that will require wisdom and strength. This will explain why you need to make use of what you have for a better tomorrow.

Conclusion

In conclusion, it is important to nurture a worthy understanding of our character strengths. This...