Believe improvement is possible enough to participate in creating it.

Belief that things can improve matters mainly because it determines whether you try. Someone who thinks nothing will change stops looking for the ways it could, and the prediction becomes self-fulfilling. Optimism here is less a mood than a precondition for participation.

Ask where you have quietly concluded that nothing can be done, and test that conclusion with one small effort. You do not need to feel hopeful; you need to act as though improvement is possible long enough to see.