Hope Is Within Your Control
“Keep your feet on the ground, and keep reaching for the stars.” - Casey Kasem
I LOVE thinking about optimism through the lens of being realistic. I may have been accused a time or two of being overly optimistic—and to me, that sounds like unrealistic optimism.
Because caregiving can make optimism HARD.
When we repeatedly experience crises, setbacks, uncertainty, or circumstances we simply cannot change, it can become harder to believe that our actions will make a difference. We may begin to think, What's the point? Nothing I do is going to change this anyway.
Psychologist Martin Seligman's early work helped develop the concept of learned helplessness—when repeated experiences of uncontrollable stress can lead us to expect that our actions won't change the outcome. His later work on learned optimism explored how we can learn different ways of interpreting and responding to adversity.
Think about how relevant that is to caregiving.
There is SO much we can't control. We can't control a diagnosis, someone else's choices, whether they follow a treatment plan, or what tomorrow will bring. After enough experiences in which we have little control, it's understandable that we might begin to feel as though we have no control at all.
But “little control” and “no control” are two very different things.
Realistic Optimism Isn't Toxic Positivity
Realistic optimism doesn't ask us to pretend everything is okay. It allows us to acknowledge what is difficult while recognizing that we still have choices:
This is really hard, AND I can figure out my next step.
I can't control what happens, AND I can control how I respond.
Things didn't go as I hoped, AND tomorrow still holds possibilities.
That's hope with its feet on the ground.
Practicing realistic optimism can strengthen resilience, reduce some of the stress and worry associated with uncertainty, support well-being, and motivate us to keep taking meaningful action. For caregivers, that makes realistic optimism more than a positive mindset—it can become a protective factor against burnout.
3 Tools to Practice Realistic Optimism:
1. Control the Controllables
When we feel overwhelmed, pause and ask: "What is within my control today?" We may not be able to change the situation, but we can decide where to put our energy, ask for help, gather information, or take one next step.
2. Practice "Both/And" Thinking
Two things can be true at once:
"This is hard, and we are doing our best."
"We are exhausted, and we can take one healthy step today."
Both/and thinking allows us to acknowledge today’s reality without letting it determine what we believe about tomorrow.
3. Look for One Sign of Hope
At the end of the day, ask:
What went a little better than expected? What gave me hope? What can I look forward to tomorrow?
We're not pretending the difficult things didn't happen. We're reminding ourselves that they weren't the only things that happened.
Realistic optimism isn't believing everything will turn out exactly as we hope. It's believing that we still have choices about what we do next.
As Casey Kasem used to say when he closed his radio show every week, “Keep your feet on the ground, and keep reaching for the stars.”