The Science of Hope: The what, why, and how of hope. Seeing hope in action is truly transformative. By the end of Week 1 you’ll have explored the science, stories, and strategies of hope from scientists, activists and experts.

This week we’ll aim to focus on what creates a hopeful mindset, and share the five keys to SHINE for hope. You can’t be in your upstairs brain and downstairs brain at the same time, so utilize stress skills to get upstairs, use happiness habits to stay there, create a list of non-negotiables for happiness, and practice them – especially when times are challenging.

Week 3 finds us reviewing the third key to hope, “Inspired Actions”; sharing what they are, how to use them in life, and how they help you get to anything you want. We’ll also discuss negative vs. positive goals, setting aspirational or stretch goals, SMART goals, the stepping process, overcoming obstacles, and how we sometimes need to re-goal.

Hope is all about a vision for something in the future, and the ability to get there. We know you are more likely to achieve a goal if you write it down and have a partner – someone who you can check-in with about it. As life is all about goals, everything you do should have some component of connection. It isn’t the number in your network, however, but the quality of the connections you have.

The Fifth Key to Hope is Eliminating Challenges which is in turn about our thinking patterns, or destructive ways we think that get in the way of our ability to hope, like negative bias, internalizing failure, rumination, worry, controlling things outside of our control, or too much attachment to outcomes.