Rule #1: Hope is Neither a Strategy nor a Plan

Do you need to put a coin in the Pig of Hope...

In my office we have a piggy bank. It’s called the Pig of Hope. It’s like a swear jar. People are supposed to put money in it for the misdemeanour of using the word ‘hope’.

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For the younger readers out there, a piggy bank is an object (in the shape of a pig - I’ve got no idea why - maybe that will be a future topic) into which you put coins. In the past this is how we saved for special treats. We would put loose change into the pig, and then one day when it was full, or we got desperate, we’d break it open and spend the coins on something special - like a LP, or a pair of roller skates, or a trip to the movies.

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The Pig of Hope isn’t very full - but it should be. Not many people carry coins these days, but if they did the pig would be filling up. Because every time I hear the phrase ‘we hope’, ‘I hope’, ‘hopefully we will’, or any similar variation using the word ‘hope’, I tell them to put a dollar in the Pig of Hope as a fine for breaking my first rule.

Rule #1. Hope is neither a strategy nor a plan.

Things do not happen because we hope for them to happen. We don’t win the lottery by hoping, we don’t run our first marathon by hoping, we don’t buy a new home by hoping, we don’t get a project back on schedule by hoping.

We can only change our circumstances by actually taking action.

We might not win the lottery, but buying a ticket will at least put us in the race.

We might not win the next Canberra Marathon, but the training runs that we commit to and actually undertake this weekend, and next weekend, and the weekend after, will put us a few steps closer to starting, and maybe even finishing, the event.

We might not be able to buy the six bedroom mansion in Swinger Hill (a shout out to the town planner who got that one through - and for those not from the ACT, that is actually a real suburb!) tomorrow, but the $6.19 that we don’t spend on the caramel latte today and that we put into our savings account will put us one step closer to having a deposit.

And we might not be able to recover 18 months of the schedule that we lost because of a global pandemic, but the couple of days here and the few days there that we do save will at least move us in the right direction.

When I hear people use the word hope and then challenge them to put a virtual coin in the Pig of Hope, what I am attempting to do is get them to answer the question, or at least think about, what is the next step they need to take to head towards the hoped-for end state. Their next step most likely won’t result in the immediate arrival at the desired outcome, but taking that next step is so important. One thing I am certain about - doing nothing will not change anything.

If you go back to My First Post, you will see that I struck out the words ‘in the hope’, ‘hope to’, and ‘hopefully’. I realised that I wasn’t following my own Rule #1. I acknowledge that sometimes it’s hard to take that first step (like publishing your first blog or recording your first podcast), but it will definitely put you closer to your hoped-for situation than not taking any action at all.