The world feels dark right now. Like really dark.

If you've been drowning in the nonstop flood of bad news, please remember this: the hopelessness you're feeling is a learned response.

And thankfully for us, learned responses can be unlearned.

Here are two strategies that have kept me going when I've wanted to give up:

Strategy #1: Collect Evidence of Good.

Our brains are wired to fixate on the negative (aka, negativity bias), and this evolutionary survival quirk is wreaking havoc on our collective mental health.

In these wild times, it's worth remembering for every terrible story that makes the news, thousands of acts of kindness, progress, and humanity go completely unreported.

The good is still happening, the problem is that we have to actively train our brains to look for it, because it's not our brains' default setting.

To combat this, I started what I call my "Evidence of Good" collection.

Every day, I find one story of human kindness. Sometimes it's something huge, but more often than not, it was small.

A teacher going above and beyond. Neighbors showing up for each other. A stranger paying for someone's groceries. Stuff like that.

Without a doubt, this practice has made me feel more hopeful and more motivated than I have in years.

Still though, I already know some folks are going to say:

"Umm Shola...how is ignoring this shit show helpful? Sticking our head in the sand is NOT the energy this moment needs."

No, this isn't about ignoring anything. This is about balance.

The world has always a mixture of darkness and light, cruelty and kindness, and problems and progress. The difference is that now we're only being force-fed the darkness.

It's not naive to see the full picture, it's survival.

Strategy #2: Take One Small Action Daily.

The most dangerous lie that hopelessness tells us is this: nothing we do matters, so why bother?

That's what late-stage learned helplessness sounds like.

More importantly, you do understand that's exactly what the forces of darkness want for you, right? To stop, to give up, to become actually powerless by believing you already are.

The key is to DO SOMETHING.

👉🏾 Pick one value (kindness, justice, community, or something else that matters to you) and take one small action around it every single day.

👉🏾 Make it micro but meaningful. A text to a struggling friend, picking up litter, or supporting a cause you believe in.

👉🏾 Track your impact. These are the receipts that build evidence of your own agency.

👉🏾 Focus on process, not outcomes. You can't always control results, but you can always control the effort.

The Civil Rights Movement, women's suffrage, and the environmental movement all started with individual people choosing to act when it would've been easier to stay silent.

You are not separate from systematic change. You are a part of it.

Stop waiting for hope to find you, because it ain't coming.

Hope isn't something that happens to you. It's something you create through your choices, your focus, and your actions.

So, let's get to work fam ❤️.