Nadine Powrie Consultancy | Executive & Leadership Coaching

Research note 2: Hope v optimism

Always address the ‘misconceptions’.

I have news for you and it may not be what you want to read!

Optimism is not hope.

You cannot substitute optimism for hope any more than you can substitute hope for optimism.

People tend to use hope and optimism as synonyms, but this isn’t accurate or correct. In the Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology, two psychologists, Fred Bryant and Jamie A. Cvengros used survey data to examine carefully the two concepts.

They determined that ‘hope focuses more directly on the personal attainment of specific goals, whereas optimism focuses more broadly on the expected quality of future outcomes in general.’

In other words, optimism is the belief that things will turn out all right; hope makes no such assumption but is a conviction that one can act to make things better in some way.

So hope has more power than optimism 😊

You can commit to increasing your hope for a better life, better personal and professional relationships, for sustaining high performance at work, for having greater conversations…

Imagine a better future and detail what makes it so. How can you change your personal behaviour from complaining to actions?

Think ‘start small and think little ways’. Just a thought!

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