Stay HOPEful... It's a virtue.

^Source

Life always throws a lot of things to us; challenges, blessing, partners, competitors…with any of these comes feelings and actions which most of the times are exactly different. We live to experience at least one of these every day. It’s almost impossible to have a day without any of these, especially Challenges of different forms. According to many ‘life itself is a defining struggle’. Defining in the sense that our struggles form a part of our overall lifestyle, including our sense of courtesy, yes, it is that influential.

Our difference in personality can all be traced down to our varied experiences, our environment to a large extent defines us, but that’s a topic for another day!

Give it smiles, for sure it all comes down to how we see our struggles; as a lesson or as a punishment. It is a clear statistic that most people would see their struggles as a punishment, being an African, I clearly understand why lessons are mistaken for punishment, that’s a normal orientation for anyone learning anything the ‘hard way’. Sometimes I’d say to myself “it shouldn’t be this hard”. But fact is, the harder it gets, the more exciting it becomes. You probably disagree with me on this, but I get it, I hardly agree with myself as regards this too.

^{Challenges tends to keep us down, but always stay HOPEful! Source}

For an entrepreneur, it even becomes more of a normal everyday event, the competition, the strategies, the trials, the errors. An entrepreneur lives each day HOPING. Our expectations keeps us in wait, we always ‘HOPE it works’. For an entrepreneur making new moves, hope becomes a strong hold. For non-entrepreneurs, this still the exact case, to an extent, we are all entrepreneurs, in different ways. Hence this is general.

Having gone through thorough preparations and having a hard time thinking out your moves, our expectations starts to rise, just before applying these solutions or making these moves, our expectations rise to its peak. We hope it works, we think of the excitements of coming out successful, and also the regrets of failing. And unfortunately, the later suffices our mindset.

^{You're always stronger than you think! Source}

We tend to think about the consequences of a failed move than the joy of its success, but that’s a part of being human, literally we are all caught up in the trap of being pessimists, naturally. Staying optimistic could be hard. For many it is more feasible to be completely pessimistic than to be completely optimistic. In reality, finding a balance between the two could be the best approach. But sometimes a balance is not what is needed.

Getting a drift and moving to the extreme could be better for your confidence, the positive extreme, I mean. Pessimism kills confidence, as an entrepreneur, as an adventurous personality and as a any sort of human being. Sometimes staying hopeful could be the only option we have, but That’s the best thing to do.

^{Keep your hopes alive, the light always shines! Source}

When you have to wait, wait Hopefully, sometimes it comes out just the way we want it, some other times it turns out otherwise, unfortunately. But keeping the hope alive is best for persistence. ‘Trying again’ is the best strategy, the most genius thing you could ever do is to stay hopeful and never give up on your plans. Statistics shows that first trials are not always as successful as the second.

The major difference between your first trial and subsequent ones is experience.

However, it is hard to try again when your sense of expectation fumbles with the first trial. Your speed of recovery depends on the strength of your hope. Your hope in the success of your next move, your hope in the success of your current move. Hope itself has a correlation with confidence. Staying hopeful could as well build your confidence.

A confident entrepreneur always believes in his strategy, he strongly hope it works, and even when it fails, he trusts his ability to bounce back even stronger and try again. While your strategies and efforts won’t always workout (at least as you expected it to), your confidence built by your hopes will always put you through your recovery route and send you to your path of making another move.

^{Blossom through it all! source}

Feeling down? Keep your head up! It always gets better, each failed move comes with a hint for a better attempt, your experience will build your expertise, your hope will build your confidence and resistance, your resistance will keep you coming back and trying again, your confidence will keep you strong through it all. Staying hopeful is hence the best thing you could do, as an entrepreneur, and even otherwise.