Each time a man stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring those ripples build a current which can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance.

Senator Robert F. Kennedy

Welcome to Ruthlessly Hopeful 

Monarch butterfly on a pink coneflower with green leaves in the background.

Mental Energy Is A Precious Resource!

Want more mental energy to set and achieve goals?

Take care of yourself!

It’s that simple.

I want to create a kinder and more hope-filled world, and I hope you do, too. Ruthlessly Hopeful is here to inform, inspire and motivate you to be more hopeful and do good.

We are a community dedicated to increasing our individual and collective sense of hope and nurturing the hope of others. Along the way, we are trying to do good while spreading hope.

So What is Hope?

Hope is the belief that the future will be better than the present, and I have the power to make it so.

Hope is a way of thinking and not a feeling, but just like any thought, emotions are included.

Hope is a skill and, just like any skill, it needs to be practiced often to get better at it.

Hope consists of:

  • Desirable goals

  • Pathways to those goals 

  • Mental energy to achieve those goals.

The absence of any one of these diminishes our hope.

Hope requires action, otherwise it’s just wishful thinking.

Latest Posts

 To be hopeful:

  • You believe that you can achieve your goals.

  • You can choose what actions to take and feel like you have some control over your life. 

Hope runs on imagination. As one researcher put it, if we can’t imagine it, we have no chance of achieving it.

If “Plan A” doesn’t work, the alphabet has 25 more letters - 204 if you’re in Japan.

Claire Cook

Research shows…… 

  • Hopeful people are more productive and experience better health. 

  • Hopeful students earn at least one letter grade better than their less hopeful peers.

  • Hope is measurable and people can learn how to hope.

  • Hope is not a solo sport. Dr. Chan Hellman, a leading hope researcher, calls it a “social gift” because hope is nurtured through our connectedness to others. 

  • Hope is one of the things that makes us human, because no other living creature can hope as humans do.

  • Hope is contagious. You can actually be more hopeful by spending time with hopeful people. So let’s spread it around!

When I dare to be powerful - to use my strength in the service of my vision, then it becomes less and less important whether I am afraid.

Audre Lorde