What do you hope for?

Key to a solution focused approach is asking ‘What do you hope for?’

It’s a big question. And a favourite.

Like most coaching approaches, it invites consideration and communication about a preferred future. The idea being if we know what is wanted, we have a much better chance of achieving it! And there are many airport taxi or tube map anecdotes to demonstrate that in first knowing our destination, we can more easily choose the right road map for a successful journey.

Of course, there are many variations on this line of enquiry: What would success look like? Your goal? The desired outcome? The question you wish to answer? What is wanted instead?

And whilst these questions may look interchangeable, I believe ‘What do you hope for?’, delivers more.

Here are the reasons why…

Hope is a constant, even mid storm and in times of despair. Taking the weather analogy further, Headspace; the experts in mindfulness, invite us to remember that even in the worst of weather conditions, above the dark clouds there is always going to be a clear, bright blue sky. We can’t always see it in the moment, but it’s there, just a plane ride away. Conversations asking ‘what do you hope for?’ are just the ticket to put us on this journey towards better times.

Hope is accessible. Sometimes glimmers of hope can be found, when goals and outcomes can not … just yet.

Hope says possibilities are here. And a focus on possibilities is infinitely more helpful, than on what is fixed and intractable.

Hope reminds us change is happening all the time. Very little in life stays the same, things are in motion and interacting all the time. We can find hope in making very small changes, which often lead to bigger, more impactful change.

Hope asks us to dwell in our preferred future, which is a much happier, fulfilling place to be than ruminating anxiously about a fearful future or being stuck in thoughts about our unchangeable, troubled past.

Try this question out for yourself. What difference does it make to your thinking? And to your mindset? And that of others?

Better is always possible: with hope.