Hope Is Not A Strategy

We can have hope. However, hope is not a plan of action.

by: Cherese Jackson

Several years ago while working hard in corporate America I began to realize two significant things. First, we live in a society who has become accustomed to microwave speed success. And last, we are more ‘feelings’ dominated than ‘purpose’ motivated. With this mixture it’s no wonder most businesses see a high employee turnover rate and even in our personal relationships, there seems to be a revolving door. To truly understand why this phenomenon has become the norm, we must recognize that simply hoping for better will never take the place of preparing for better.

If you conduct a survey of the people in your circle of influence you will no doubt hear many dreams, desires and wishes. What you will find lacking is a date or plan attached to those lofty hopes. That’s because we are a society obsessed with mission statements but very little mission accomplishments. There is a gulf between how we realize our potential and how to make it manifest.

Hope is not a strategy.

In the psychological world, human behavior and success are measured in terms of our ‘Locus of Control’. A ‘low’ Locus of Control means that person believes their success or failure heavily depends on the actions of others. But a ‘high’ Locus of Control is the exact opposite. For that person success or failure rests entirely on themselves and how they behave. With this in mind, the latter person is more likely to move beyond hoping into a state of planning. These people know that if their destiny is to be fruitful, they have to get up and work for it.

Here are a few traits of folks with a strong Locus of Control:

• They are usually coined by friends as an over achiever: Every group has one. The guy or girl who is usually missing from most events due to their ‘hustle’. They work a couple of jobs, always have big dreams and are vocal about how successful they will be. You know it’s just a matter of time before they really strike it big!

• Excuses don’t seem to be in their vocabulary: There are some friends you can complain with and others you know to avoid with negativity. High L.O.C. people don’t respond well to sad stories or pity parties. They are the ones who yell for you to get off your butt because the world doesn’t owe us anything. They strongly resemble a drill sergeant.

• They actually walk the talk: Now there’s a rarity, someone who does just what they say they will. It is amazing how easy it has become to be a ‘social media’ icon. If you get a couple thousand followers on Twitter or fifty ‘likes’ on Facebook, you are a celebrity. The problem is, you’re only a celeb in your own mind! Authentic people spend their time ‘doing’ far more than they are ‘saying’.

We all have hopes. These are the things we gaze off into space on lazy afternoons. But for real issues and real needs we must move pass a nostalgic fuzzy feeling about our future into a serious time of planning. Things will not just happen. Things must be made to happen. When you and I are ready to elevate our lives, we take our hopes and fashion them into well-crafted plans of action.

© 2013, Cherese L. Jackson. All rights reserved.