The Power of Positive Psychology
Positive psychology is a therapeutic science that studies our thoughts, feelings, and behaviors and helps us develop a consistently positive outlook on life and our goals.
Positive psychology is a mental health therapy that acknowledges our strengths and innate ability to create positive outcomes in everything we do. It helps us focus on the good in life rather than our fears and negative thoughts.
Coping With Financial Distress And Despair
When facing financial challenges, positive psychology can help break the cycle of negative thinking.
In studies where people experienced the distress of financial hardship and were temporarily rendered homeless, mental health professionals found that positive psychology significantly reduced their shelter stay.
The Fear of Falling Into Homelessness
The fear of homelessness has deep evolutionary roots that come from our primal instinct to survive. When we see people facing homelessness, we tend to assume they are mentally ill rather than having been caught up in financially challenging and destabilizing circumstances, such as divorce, being wrongfully terminated from their work, or having suffered a disabling accident without having a supportive family or social network to help them through the crisis.
People automatically assume a person’s sharp decline into homelessness was due to drugs and alcohol, or they have recently been released from prison.
The Destabilizing Effect of Financial Decline
Only recently has positive psychology been applied to helping people through financial hardship. Positive psychology helps them focus on the positive outcomes while they find practical solutions to their financial circumstances.
Encouraging individuals to identify and utilize their strengths improves their ability to cope with the pain and destabilizing impact of experiencing a sharp and often unexpected financial decline.
The Stress of Financial Despair Is On The Rise
Statistic: Financial Stress Prevalence: In 2022, 60% of US adults reported feeling anxious about their finances, and 50% felt stressed when discussing them.
Financial hardship leading to homelessness has also been on the rise in 2023. With worsening affordable housing shortage, stagnant wages, and inflation, homelessness is a likely scenario for not just low-income households but also middle-class families.
The Washington Post has reported a rising number of workers earning a good income one year but then suddenly being on the verge of homelessness the next. Even the financially well-situated baby boomers have felt the sting of a sudden and unexpected financial decline – sometimes even facing homelessness.
The Social Stigma of Financial Hardship
Knowing how easy it is to go from having moderate financial concerns to actually experiencing financial hardship leaves people feeling anxious and vulnerable. For most people, being thrown into financial hardship is neither a choice nor a consequence of bad decisions. Either way, the result is the same – one is consumed by financial worries.
Going through financial hardship should be normalized as a challenge that anyone could go through instead of turning it into a social stigma that renders people stressed, anxiety-stricken, and ashamed.
Suffering through financial hardship does not define who you are. Maybe the shame of financial despair makes you feel like it does, but this is where positive psychology can benefit you the most.
Destigmatizing financial hardship requires a shift in our perspective. Learning how to shift your perspective is one of the most potent features of positive psychology.
Although the shame of being in such despair can seem unavoidable, there is no shame in fighting to escape it.
How and Why Does Positive Psychology Work
According to a Harvard Medical Article of April 13, 2023, reviewed and edited by Mallika Marshall, MD, positive psychology helps to foster happiness and emotional wellness. It does this by assisting people to capitalize on their strengths, heighten their gratitude and awareness, connect to others, and develop the wisdom needed to live a more meaningful and fulfilling life.
Positive psychology has also been described as a science that studies our thoughts, feelings, and behaviors, focusing on strengths instead of weaknesses. Positive psychology prioritizes ways to build the good in life, more than just fearing the bad.
Experiencing The Emotional Pain of Financial Despair
Experiencing financial despair can seem like the bad outnumbers the good in one’s life. However, you may benefit from positive psychology by intentionally nurturing a positive bias towards the good in life.
It is a powerful approach to maintaining your wellbeing when facing life-changing adversity. It can keep you from falling prey to severe mental illnesses or addictions, two obstacles that can keep you down for a much longer duration.
Positive psychology is much more than what is found in common self-help books. It is a science with decades of research, meaning its solutions have been tested and worked for many people, and they may work for you, too.
Benefits of Positive Psychology
Why should you bother with positive psychology when every day is a struggle, and you cannot see the silver lining? One apparent reason is that these techniques are accessible and free to try.
As coping mechanisms, they are much healthier than resorting to substances to ease the pain and worry. And as you shall learn, most of life’s difficulties often carry priceless opportunities for growth, wisdom, and happiness.
Pathways Out of Financial Despair When Facing Homelessness
Let’s consider a path out of financial despair. The goal is to find a stable residence, apply for subsidies, and earn a sustainable income. Many people need three to six months; others are shorter, and some take longer.
How long it may take for you depends on several factors.
Positive psychology techniques help you focus and improve on the factors within your control.
While you can wait for the odds to change, which you might feel is out of your control, you can start practicing positive psychology, focusing on things within your control.
Positive psychology is a great starting point for improving your situation.
Practicing positive psychology can get you to a healthy state of mind – mentally and emotionally. Positive psychology helps train your brain to favor the positive things in life, even when you are hard-pressed to name one.
It builds your mental and emotional strengths so that you can look back one day and feel proud of what you went through and, in your resilience and determination, conquer.

Positive Psychology Exercises That Can Jump Start Your Life
This article provides exercises and questions that guide your thoughts and actions toward reaching a state of wellbeing.
Here you will find techniques to:
- Celebrate your admirable resilience
- Keep hope alive
- Identify and build your strengths
Positive Psychology Technique 1: Celebrate Your Resilience
Resilience is adapting to adversity, trauma, tragedy, threats, or severe stress. When we have resilience, we do not just adapt. We learn from our hardships and bounce back stronger than before.
Life-changing events are a test of our resilience. Since you have been coping with homelessness, you are more resilient than so many people. You are used to being told no and being disappointed.
The type of resilience you have is adaptive resilience – it is developed when you learn to roll with life’s punches and survive. What you can do is strengthen the resilience reserve already in you. It is a skill that can be learned.
Below are a few exercises that help you recognize your past resilience and know that you can handle scary challenges when they arise.
Explore past resilience
This exercise is adapted from the Positive Psychology guide Exploring Past Resilience.
Recall an emotionally taxing incident that led you to homelessness. Consider how you dealt with it. Answer these questions:
- What was the most difficult aspect of that situation?
- How did you cope at the time?
- How did you overcome the situation and emerge successfully on the other side?
Reflect on your answers, and go deeper with the following questions:
The incident:
- What was your objective at the time?
- What was the result?
- What challenges did you need to overcome?
- What difficult thoughts and emotions do you recall experiencing at the time?
Supportive people:
- Was there someone you successfully turned to for outside support? Who?
Strategies:
- What skills were helpful to you in dealing with the situation? What perspectives or mindsets in particular?
- Rate your resilience in that situation on a scale of 1-100% (where 100% is highest)
- Why do you feel it wasn’t 0%? What, in particular, makes you think that?
- What character strengths, skills, or qualities do you believe were helpful to you?
Solution seeking:
- If you rated your resilience below 100%, how would you improve it when you encounter similar future challenges?
Wisdom:
- Based on the past experience you just worked through, what advice might you give to someone who is dealing with a similar situation?
Refer to these answers when you need a reminder of how resilient you can be. You are stronger than you think.
Develop future resilience: the 4-S Plan
Going along the lines of the exercise above, the 4-S Plan guides you to prepare for future adversity. The 4-S Plan below is adapted from Care Clinic’s article, the 4S’s of Resiliency.
4S stands for Supportive people – Strategies – Sagacity (wisdom) – Solutions.
One: Identify Supportive People
It could be trusted friends, family, people who know your situation and want to help, or professional support.
Two: Identify coping strategies
Look at your answers for the Strategies section. What would be effective if such an incident were repeated?
Three: Sagacity (Wisdom)
Keep a record of sayings or quotes meaningful to you. Read the quotes when you need some wise guidance. Let them inspire your actions.
Four: Solution seeking
Write down some possible solutions that can help you avoid similar incidents.
If they are unavoidable, explore options to cope with and overcome similar incidents. You can do this with the people willing to support you – your support community.
If the incident seems insurmountable, how about learning new skills or simply allowing yourself time to adjust?
Positive Psychology Technique 2: Keep Hope Alive
“Hope is [….] a personal rainbow of the mind” Charles Snyder 2002
Hope is not optimism. When you are optimistic, you expect things will work out well, even better than expected. Hope is more realistic.
You may not be optimistic about the future. Still, you can be hopeful about possible future outcomes based on your current actions.
Hope is also not wishful thinking. Wishful thinking is ambiguous and passive because you do not have a plan. Hope is when you have a plan to seek positive changes.
Hope is future-oriented. When you have hope, you set a goal, devise multiple plans, and try them all out. When you are hopeful, you will be resilient because you will not take no for an answer – you will find multiple pathways to achieve the same goal.
When hopeful, you are a lot more proactive: you believe in your agency – your personal power – to make positive changes happen. You look at small, tiny progress as encouraging signs of success. Therefore, hope often goes together with resilience.
What does it mean to have hope?
Staying precariously in temporary housing, not knowing if you, your possessions, and your family are safe, can dim anyone’s hope.
When feeling like you are sinking deeper into despair, it may be time to remind yourself what it means to have hope. When you can have a calm moment, guide your search for that glimmer of hope with these questions:
- What does a hopeful person look and sound like?
- How have you used hope in your own life?
- Are there any risks with having hope?
- If an image or tune could remind you of hope every day, what would it be?
- What is the smallest possible change that could increase your hope?
While answering these questions, notice what it feels like when you think about hope. Having been struggling for a while, you likely feel a mix of emotions: grief, nostalgia, envy, sadness, despair, gratitude, and devastation.
Gently let go of the negative emotions and stay with the positive ones. These are the emotions that will compel you to act in the right direction.
If this is too hard, imagine you as someone else – a hopeful person. How would it feel to be them?
Retell your story with hope
When you use positive psychology, favor the positive things, even when it is the darkest time. This simple exercise in shifting your perspective may help.
Think back to the story of how you got here. Your memories may replay the broken relationship, the debilitating illness, the violent abuses, or the financial hardship that pushed you out of your home.
Let’s reframe this story in the language of hope.
- What was your goal?
- How did you arrive at your goal?
- What was your motivation?
- Was your goal realistic?
- What was your mood during that process?
- How did you overcome the challenges?
- Did you achieve your goal?
- How do you feel about the outcome?
Set the goals that make you hopeful.
What distinguishes hopeful people from optimistic or wishful people is that hopeful people set feasible goals and devise multiple pathways to attain them.
What are your goals?
- Describe your goal in as much detail as possible.
- How much do you desire this goal?
- Describe why you want to achieve the goal. List what is motivating you.
- Imagine you have just achieved your goal. Describe how you think you will feel in this future memory.
- Are your goals realistic? How many resources does it take? It could be time, money, supportive people, agencies, programs, and subsidies you can access.
See yourself getting there
You must believe you can reach your goals once you have plans to achieve them.
How do you get there?
- List the pathways (actions/strategies) you can use to achieve your goal.
- Describe potential barriers for each pathway listed.
- Describe a time when you achieved a goal by overcoming barriers. What were the barriers, and how did you overcome them?
- Choose the best pathway and describe how you will overcome the barrier.
- What are two or three things that must be accomplished for you to attain your goal? (This helps focus and saves energy. There are things you may have to STOP doing.)
- Identify people and/or resources in your community who you can rely on as a source of support in pursuing your goal.
Feeling overwhelmed by all the things you must do?
Write down your plan, break it down into small steps, and focus on the first small step when you are ready to take action.
Whenever you feel the odds are ridiculous, narrow your focus on the next small step. Taking this one tiny step in the right direction is better than doing nothing or going in the wrong direction.
Wellness Tip: Remember, progress is more important than goals. Even if you can manage to do just one tiny thing in your plan, have faith that that small effort brings you one step closer to your goal.
Visualize your plan
For inspiration and faith, you can:
- Visualize: imagine yourself taking the first step in your plan. It could be as simple as asking a supportive person for help. Ask yourself what you would feel like doing it.
- Keep visualizing the next step in your plan. Focus on the next best thing you can do.
- When you feel overwhelmed by the plan, read hopeful stories or talk to hopeful people. There are plenty of people who have gotten out of homelessness after years of being in it. Here are the Ted Talk videos of Rachel Hall, David Raether, and Becky Blanton. They have done it, and so can you.
Visualization is a powerful technique to strengthen your resolve. A lot of strategic thinking goes into visualizing the details of your plan. When you visualize, you are actually doing these things:
- break down the goals into small, manageable steps
- gauge how you would feel doing it
- gauge how others would react
- estimate the resources it may take
Essentially, visualization strengthens your resolve to overcome seemingly insurmountable challenges. It also helps you bridge the gap between where you are now and where you will be once you carry out your plan.

How not to lose hope
Like growing a plant, to keep hope alive, you must keep feeding hope with encouraging thoughts, constructive actions, and supportive relationships daily.
Do not:
- Allow yourself to be constantly surprised by obstacles that you can anticipate.
- Panic when reaching a roadblock.
- Conclude that nothing will ever change for the better.
- Take yourself too seriously.
- Get impatient when change is not immediate.
Positive Psychology Technique 3: Build Your Strengths
We tend to fixate on our weaknesses rather than our strengths. This negative bias is particularly painful if you blame yourself for falling into this circumstance.
Remember, at its core, negative thinking is a survival instinct. But you do not have to allow it to dictate your actions.
Focusing on human strengths rather than weaknesses is a signature of positive psychology. Shifting your thinking to favoring your strengths over berating your weaknesses is a decisive move toward strengthening your resilience and self-control.
When you know your strengths, you no longer feel so helpless. You can start believing that there are things in your favor. Your strengths will make you feel more energized and authentic.
Positive psychologists such as Christopher Peterson and Martin Seligman identify 24-character strengths that exist in all of us. We may be stronger in some ways and weaker in others.
The point is to identify your strength pattern so you can tap into it and save yourself the easy way.
You can do a 24-core strengths survey here.
What do the results mean? Your best strengths appear on top, and your weaknesses are at the bottom of the list. The weaknesses can be retrained to become less debilitating. Most of all, focus on your top strengths:
- How have they been benefiting you?
- How can you use them even more to improve your situation?
An alternative test is the Big Five Personality Test.
Identify your strengths
Here are some questions to guide you in identifying and building on your strengths:
Interests:
- What energizes you?
- What are you good at? What do you think you do really well?
- What do you like about yourself?
Experiences:
- Given all the challenges you have had to contend with, how have you managed to survive this far?
- Describe a good day. What made it a good day?
- When did you achieve something you’re proud of?
- What did you enjoy studying at school or university?
Testimonials:
- What would the people closest to you describe as your superpower?
- When people say good things about you, what are they likely to say?
- What role do you play in the lives of the people you care about?
Doing these exercises and tests provides you with the language to talk to yourself in more encouraging and accurate terms. Gradually, you can explain your strengths to others, especially potential employers.
Use your strengths in your job search
Looking for jobs [internal link] that use your strengths is a good strategy because you are more likely to enjoy and perform well in them.
List your strengths in your resume or CV as desirable qualities to make yourself stand out and increase your chance of getting hired. Prepare some examples to illustrate your strengths.
For example, a study on character strengths shows that most people experiencing homelessness become animated when they talk about their strengths. A man in this states that his strength is perseverance.
To illustrate this, he recalls the time he worked in landscaping. Whether it took 2 hours or 20 hours, he always got the job done.
Likewise, you should take some time to gather past experiences showing how your strengths have enabled you to perform well in a job. These examples provide good reasons for a sympathetic employer to hire you.
Knowing your strengths is a source of motivation. Playing to your strengths begins with knowing what they are. Your strengths are where you can be confident that you can do well in it with less effort, and improvements happen faster.
Regulate your weaknesses
On the other side, knowing your weaknesses helps you temper and regulate them before they get out of hand and start to control you. You should avoid situations that strain your weaknesses.
Let’s take the example mentioned above of perseverance as a strength. The dark side of having perseverance is stubbornness and lack of prudence.
In working hard to attain a goal, a persevering person may overlook the costs of their actions, ignore the changing circumstances, and underestimate the risks.
They may make risky and costly decisions that no longer fit the new circumstance. Before they could reach their goal, they paid a dear price.
This is when their strength – perseverance – becomes dangerous to themselves.
The wisdom of knowing your limits places a self-regulated brake on you, which could be extremely helpful in staying away from addiction or for making serious mistakes that could dampen your effort in getting out of homelessness.
Thinking about our weaknesses can make us anxious. The key is to regulate them, not to allow them to overpower us. Remember that your strengths can more than compensate for your weaknesses.
Shifting focus
To shift your focus more onto your strengths and less on your weaknesses, it helps to think of yourself as a survivor rather than a victim.
In talking to yourself, retell your hardship as a survivor, emphasizing how you have been using your strengths to cope. This self-talk exercise strengthens your resilience and self-compassion, helps calm down your destructive thoughts, and lessens your need to numb your negative feelings.
See yourself as a resilient survivor who is rebuilding something new rather than a victim stuck in a hopeless state. Day by day, this positive internal belief will reflect and shape your external reality.
Statistics: Financial Anxiety Among Women: 65% of women reported feeling anxious about their personal finances, compared to 54% of men, highlighting a gender disparity in financial stress.
Resources to Support Your Journey
Financial Assistance
- Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF): Provides temporary financial assistance and support services to low-income families with children. Source: USA.gov
- Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP): Offers food assistance to eligible low-income individuals and families. Source: USA.gov
- Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP): Assists with utility bills to ensure you stay warm in the winter and cool in the summer. Source: US News Money
- Salvation Army: Provides rent, mortgage, and utility assistance to help reduce financial and emotional burdens associated with housing. Source: Salvation Army
Legal Support
- Legal Services Corporation (LSC): Funds independent nonprofit legal aid organizations that provide civil legal assistance to low-income Americans. Source: LSC
- American Bar Association – Free Legal Help: Offers resources to find pro bono lawyers and free or low-cost legal assistance. Source: American Bar Association
- LawHelp.org: Connects individuals with free legal aid and information about legal rights. Source: LawHelp
Mental Health Support
- SAMHSA’s National Helpline: A confidential, free, 24/7 information service for individuals facing mental health or substance use disorders. Call 1-800-662-HELP (4357). Source: SAMHSA
- Mental Health America: Provides resources and support for individuals dealing with mental health challenges. Source: Mental Health America
- National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI): Offers support, education, and advocacy for individuals affected by mental illness. Source: NAMI
- Crisis Text Line: Provides free, 24/7 support via text message for those in crisis. Text HOME to 741741 to connect with a trained crisis counselor. Source: Crisis Text Line
General Assistance
- 211: A free, confidential service that connects individuals across North America with local resources, including financial assistance, housing, and health services. Dial 211 by phone or visit their website.
- USA.gov: Offers information on government benefits and financial help, including assistance with food, housing, health care, and more. Source: USA.gov
Remember, seeking help is a sign of strength. These resources are here to support you through challenging times, providing both practical assistance and emotional support. You are not alone.
Practice Positive Psychology Now
There are a million ways to cope with homelessness. These positive psychology techniques are suggestions, not a must. Use them when it feels right, let them:
- Remind you of your resilience
- Cultivate hope
- Build on your strengths.
It may be hard to focus on the positive when you struggle to satisfy your basic needs. Still, it is never too late to prevent things from deteriorating.
Video Testimonial – The Brodie Story
Practicing positive psychology means nurturing realistic hope that things will work out if you keep trying. After 14 years on the street, Bodie, with the help of his friend Jodi, has tried 15 steps over several weeks to get a photo ID for a job. They almost gave up several times but got through in the end:
Five Myths about Positive Psychology and Financial Despair:
Myth #1: Isn’t positive psychology just pie in the sky?
Reality: Positive psychology isn’t about being unrealistic; it’s about practical, evidence-based ways to build resilience and wellbeing.
Myth #2: Is financial despair my fault because I made bad decisions?
Reality: Many things are outside our control, like inflation and housing shortages. Financial hardship is often systemic, not personal.
Myth #3: Doesn’t homelessness only happen to people living in poverty?
Reality: It can happen to any of us, no matter our income, due to unexpected events like medical bills, job loss, or family crises.
Myth #4: Do I need to be mentally strong for positive psychology to work?
Reality: Positive psychology is for everyone, including those of us who feel overwhelmed or vulnerable. It helps us build strength over time.
Sources and References
Harvard Medical Publishing – Positive Psychology
Positive Psychology Counselling – Orla Foley Kincora Therapy
27 Resilience Activities for Students and Adults
The Power of Hope: How It Can Improve Your Mental Health and Overall Well-Being