Hope, a simple word but one which carries with it the very fabric of existence. The effects of hope are undeniable and should not be underestimated. 

I am going to tell you why I believe hope is the most important motivator that exists. There are not many things that can break a person as quickly as a lack of hope can. This is true of any situation that you want to apply it to: goals, lifestyle, freedom, marriage, finances or even a shipwrecked victim. I will tell you how to keep hope alive or reignite it if it has gone out. 

To begin with let us define hope. 

• Hope is defined as-a feeling of expectation and desire for a certain thing to happen. That is generally true but I believe hope is that unseen force that keeps us moving forward and gets us out of bed every day. Deeper than that is the fact that will power is a finite thing. We only have so much will power to go around beyond that we need something more to pull us through the hard times.

Take goals for example

• Any goal is really fine, the specific goal doesn’t really matter because the underlying concept is the same. Any goal you set has a largely psychological side to it. It is not something tangible that you can touch or feel. Despite this it is always in the back of your mind (literally) telling you you're going to succeed or fail.

•  Dave Ramsey (a well know financial coach) advocates paying your debts off from smallest to largest. This may seem counter intuitive because it would seem to make sense to pay the highest interest debt off first. Paying off your smallest debt gives you a feeling of hope in the form of progress. If you don't feel like you're making progress that will power is going to fade and you're going to lose hope. No hope means what's the point of continuing to try? 

POW and Shipwrecked victims know it well

• These are both classic example that many have probably read in a book or seen in a movie. Take a shipwrecked victim on a deserted island or a prisoner in a foreign land for example. Both are in some of the most extreme circumstances you could imagine. What keeps a person going in a situation where they are in extreme or complete solitude? If you said HOPE then gold star for you. Hope can take many different forms, for a prisoner it may take the form of hope that he will be rescued or hope that he will see his family again. Hope will look different for different people but without it most will fail.

Don't let hope die

So all this to say that you need to keep hope alive. If you are lacking hope then try re-evaluating your goals. Set smaller more achievable goals or set daily, weekly and monthly goals. You don’t need to focus on the final or end result, if you are struggling just focus on today or tomorrow. Focusing on a goal that's to big can seem unachievable and cause you to lose hope of ever reaching it. Celebrate your success, don’t wait till you reach your final goal to celebrate. You need to keep hope alive and celebrate the weekly or monthly successes.