I just attended a program by Braver Angels. Their mission is to help build a united America. I have several newsletters that I will be writing about lessons I learned from them.
The first one I want to write about comes from a question that someone had for the presenters. He indicated that he didn’t have hope for the future to be different, could they provide him with any?
Of course, their organization is all about providing a way forward, a way to have better conversations, so they are all about hope.
But my hope came from a later comment from one of the attendees, who talked about how she had made a difference to one person in her community and how that made her feel hopeful. My hope was reinforced when I listened to a podcast by psychologist Angela Duckworth and sports executive Mike Maughn called No Stupid Questions about pessimism. The point Angela made is that pessimism is learned and can be unlearned. We can unlearn it by celebrating small wins, exactly what the attendee said. We need to find small things we can do, and succeed at, and start to feel agency again.
What can you do to help someone in your community do better? Celebrate those small wins.