Hope - A Motivational Force To Pursue Your Path

A few months ago I participated in our biennial Colorado Urban Education Leadership Council meeting – and for the second time this year was fortunate to see Jeff Duncan-Andrade speak. He’s a remarkable orator and a force who explores the intersectionality of education, public health, and neuroscience. If you have the chance to listen to his TED talk or see him in person – do.

Among many things, he spoke about being a hope dealer in giving kids a sense of control over their destiny. He cited research around hope as defined by “a positive motivational state that is based on an interactively derived sense of successful agency and pathways” (Snyder, 2000).

Think of a pathway as a route toward achieving a desired goal paired with the individual’s perceived ability to pursue those routes. Whereby agency is the actual motivation to undertake the routes towards personal goals. At Couragion, we help kids discover potential career opportunities. We seek to spark perceived personal capacity with diverse role models so that kids can envision themselves in those careers. We lay the foundational path to continue to explore the skills and experiences that will help kids learn more about themselves. And we motivate them to persist on those paths with interactive continuity and programming.

We talk about hope quite a bit. We hope for good weather. We hope for peace. And as kids, we might hope we get just what we want for Christmas. We hope you have a wonderful holiday season!

Sources: 

Jeff Duncan-Andrade TED Talk

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2CwS60ykM8s

Snyder, C.R. (2000). Hypothesis: There is Hope. In C.R. Snyder (Eds.), Handbook of Hope Theory, Measures and Applications (pp.3-21). San Diego: Academic Press.