If you’ve been low, down, or just stuck for some time, here are 10 ways to make yourself feel hopeful again and get moving slowly.
There are seasons in life when hope feels really out of reach.
Sometimes it’s because something painful happened, like a breakup, a diagnosis, or a job loss.
Sometimes it’s nothing big, but just the exhaustion of being stuck in the same cycle of pain, bad habits, unhealthy relationships, and low moods.
You try again and again, but nothing changes, and eventually you stop expecting anything good.
It’s hard to realize the importance of hope during such times, because we all just run toward solutions to change our lives, but nobody focuses on the feeling of being hopeful.
But hope is something every person in the world needs, and without it, all can really be lost.
Why You Need Hope In Life
I’ve recently been thinking a lot about hope, and you might find it funny, but it’s because I’ve been rewatching The Vampire Diaries.
That show talks about hope a lot.
Even when the characters are grieving, betrayed, or facing literal life-or-death situations, someone always says, ‘I still have hope.’ And I feel it every time they say it.
Talking about hope sounds dramatic in a supernatural series, but it’s not dramatic in real life. It’s actually a need.
Hope isn’t denial or pretending everything is fine.
It’s the belief that things can change. That you can move forward. And your bad chapters do not make the whole story.
It’s something I have felt in my own life, during phases of depression, mourning, excessive weight gain, and being without a job.
If I didn’t have hope during those periods, I never would have gotten to the stage where I am genuinely content and working on myself with enthusiasm (despite the ups and downs).
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If you’re feeling stuck or worn down, here are 10 things that can help you feel hopeful again.
How To Feel Hopeful Again
1. Start smaller than you think you need to
When you feel hopeless, your mind tends to zoom out too far.
You start thinking about how you will ever fix your whole life, or what if nothing ever changes?
The problem with this kind of thinking is that it is really overwhelming, and it shuts hope down.
You need to stop focusing on the next five years and just focus on the next few days.
What is one thing you could improve little by little? Not change, but improve?
Maybe you can drink more water this week, or update your resume by one page.
Maybe you can have an honest conversation that you’ve been avoiding, or start a simple yoga routine to calm your mind and body?
Hope grows only when progress feels possible.
When you start making little changes slowly, your mind starts believing that bigger things are possible too. This is how the light gets back in.
2. Clean up one area you can control
If your life is chaotic or painful right now, it will feel out of control. There’s a feeling of helplessness involved in such situations.
You can’t fix someone else’s behavior. You can’t rush healing. You can’t instantly erase debt, grief, or chronic pain.
But you can control a small piece of your environment. And that matters more than it sounds.
You might not want to do this, but I really urge you to at least try.
Choose one space around you and bring order to it.
Clean your room, clear off your desk, or organize that one drawer that’s been a mess for months.
As simple as it seems, restoring order in one corner of your life is powerful.
It makes you realize you’re not really helpless, and there are corners of your life you can influence.
Sometimes, hope doesn’t require you to control everything. It just needs proof that you’re not completely stuck.
3. Change what you’re feeding your mind
If you’ve been feeling low for a while and just can’t seem to shake it, you need to take an honest look at what you’re consuming every day.
Pay attention to the news cycle, your social media, conversations that revolve around complaints, and even your own internal script.
If everything you hear and tell yourself reinforces the idea that life is hard, unfair, and unlikely to improve, your mind will start to accept that as truth.
This doesn’t mean ignoring reality or pretending everything is positive, okay? It means intentionally balancing what goes into your mind.
Slowly remove the negative and replace it with positive input.
Read something that reminds you that people recover, listen to stories about resilience, and spend time around someone who talks about plans instead of just problems.
What you expose yourself to will shape what you expect from life. And expectation plays a huge role in hope.
Expect the bad, and you will lose hope. Expect good things, and hope will come to you in spades.
4. Borrow hope when you can’t create it
There will be days when you simply don’t have it in you to believe things will get better. I have such days too.
And on days like these, it is very easy to want to hide or seek negativity. But you need to do the opposite here.
Don’t isolate yourself, but reach for someone who sees you clearly.
It can be a friend who knows your strengths, a family member who has watched you overcome hard things before, or a therapist who can hold perspective when yours feels shaky.
Sometimes hope comes to you when someone tells you, “I know you’re tired, but I don’t believe this is the end of your story.”
Just that one simple affirmation can be very uplifting. So, let people remind you of who you are when you forget.
Because you don’t have to create belief from nothing. You can lean on borrowed hope until your own returns.
5. Separate today’s feelings from your entire future
There is a very specific feeling that comes from a lack of hope, which is that how you feel right now is how you will always feel.
But that is one big lie.
Your feelings are temporary, trust me, even when they’re really intense. They move, shift, rise, and fall.
The problem is that when you’re in the middle of a hard stretch, your brain tries to protect you by assuming permanence.
So, you need to gently challenge that thought.
Don’t think that this will ever change, but think that this is what you’re just experiencing right now.
It’s a little change, but it will create a lot of breathing room for your thoughts.
You can feel discouraged and still believe in improvement. You can feel lost and still have a direction waiting to be discovered.
Hope doesn’t require you to feel good. It requires you to believe that feelings are not final, and that they can and will change with time (for the better).
6. Give yourself something to look forward to
One of the things that hope thrives on is…anticipation.
If there is nothing for you to look forward to, your life will feel flat and boring. You wake up, repeat the same day, and go back to sleep.
But having something to look forward to breaks this cycle. This is why people take trips!
But if a trip isn’t possible, then you can book a fun class, schedule dinner with someone you enjoy, or start a project that will take a few weeks to complete.
Even something simple (like trying a new cafe this weekend) can create a sense of excitement.
When you have something ahead of you, the present moment will feel less like a trap and more like a bridge.
And it’s also pretty nice to open yourself to new experiences. They help you learn and grow in life.
7. Do something that reminds you that you’re still you
When you’ve been stuck in pain or disappointment for a while, it can start to define you.
You become the one with anxiety, or the one who always picks the wrong partner, or the one whose body never cooperates.
Even if nobody around you sees you that way, you still think of yourself that way somewhere inside. And slowly, your identity shrinks around the problem.
But ‘the problem’ is the keyword here, not ‘you’.
To rebuild hope, what you need is to reconnect with parts of yourself that have nothing to do with what’s going wrong.
You can:
- Write something creative
- Go for a long walk with music that moves you
- Cook a meal you enjoy
- Work on a hobby you abandoned
- Join a class you’ve always been interested in (like MMA, swimming, pottery)
These actions may not fix your circumstances immediately, but they will reconnect you with your fuller identity.
When you remember that you are more than your current struggle, the future feels less boxed in and there is more space for hope.
8. Protect the small spark
We’re never completely hopeless in life. Even when things are dark, your heart still craves the light and tries to conjure it.
So, when that happens, you need to recognize the spark and protect it.
Don’t wait for any life-changing moment to come save you. Create hope quietly with a small thought like, ‘Maybe this isn’t the end.’
Give in to the tiny desire to try again and seek the brief flicker of curiosity about what could be different.
Protect that spark, act on it in small ways, because even one small step is a vote for your future.
If you’ve lost hope, that doesn’t mean you’re weak. It means you’re tired. And tired people need rest, support, and small evidence that change is possible.
Hope is powerful not because it guarantees outcomes, but because it keeps you moving long enough to find them.
You don’t have to see the whole path. You just need enough light for the next step.
To quote Leonard Cohen, “There is a crack in everything. That’s how the light gets in.”
And also, as Dumbledore says in one of my favorite Harry Potter scenes, “Happiness can be found even in the darkest of times, if one only remembers to turn on the light.”
9. Remember that ‘Okay’ can become ‘Good’
So far in this post, I’ve talked of hope as something for your low phases. But it’s not only for survival, is it?
Even if your life looks good on paper, you still need hope to push you ahead.
You might not be in crisis, but you may still feel a quiet dissatisfaction. A sense that you’re capable of more, or meant for something slightly different.
Hope is what allows you to imagine improvement without shaming your current situation.
It’s what gives you permission to apply for the job you really want, to have the difficult conversation, to take the risk that could expand your life.
Without hope, we tolerate. With hope, we stretch.
But you and I, we both deserve more than just getting by. We deserve growth.
So, please remember to be hopeful even when things are okay, because good is even better.
10. When you don’t have the words, pray
When everything feels heavy, and you’ve run out of plans, prayer can be the place you set the weight down.
Prayer creates space between you and your fear. It reminds you that you are not the only one responsible for holding your life together.
You just need to sit quietly and say out loud, “I don’t understand this. I’m tired. Please help me.”
Also, speaking your worries out loud or in your head to some higher power can be powerful.
It slows your racing thoughts, reconnects you to your values, and helps you feel supported, whether that support comes from faith, tradition, or your own quiet strength.
Even if your circumstances don’t change overnight, your outlook on life changes, and it’s enough to make you hope again.
Hope Is a Choice You Keep Making
One important thought I have for you before going is that hope is a choice.
It is not something you either have or don’t have. It’s something you practice.
Some days it feels natural and strong, but other days it feels fragile, almost foolish.
But every time you choose to try again, to believe change is possible, to take one small step instead of giving up, you are choosing hope.
And that choice matters so, so much.
Life won’t always make sense while you’re living it. There will be chapters that feel unfair, confusing, and even painfully slow.
But as long as you leave a little room for the possibility that things can shift, you won’t be stuck.
You’ll still keep moving, and often, the willingness to keep going is the most powerful kind of hope there can be.
Read next: How To Do a Life Audit – 7 Simple Steps
What’s something you do to give yourself hope? Let me know in the comment box before you leave, and feel free to share your thoughts on the post, too.
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