The Art of Possibility: On Hope, Agency, and Our Capacity for Change

by Valerie Addona, Founder of Klēo Healing

Some days, I feel as though I could take anything on. I felt this often when I was starting my own business: one day, the possibilities seemed endless, and even the unknown felt energizing. The next, I would question whether I was capable of building what I had imagined, or whether I should return to the familiarity and security of an established organization. Nothing outside of me may have changed very much. And yet my sense of what was possible had.

That contrast has made me increasingly curious about hope. Not hope as optimism, or the belief that everything will work out, but as something more fundamental: our ability to imagine that what exists today is not the only way things could be. Psychologist C. R. Snyder’s Hope Theory offers a useful framework. He described hope through two interconnected capacities: pathways, our ability to identify possible routes toward something we want, and agency, our sense that we can move along them. Hope, in this view, is not passive wishing. It involves being able to perceive a way forward and experiencing some capacity to move toward it.

What Shapes What We Believe Is Possible

The futures we imagine do not emerge in a vacuum. They are shaped by our experiences, what we see modeled around us, the opportunities available to us, and the stories we absorb about who we are and what people like us can do. Our nervous systems are learning from these experiences too. Experiences of support, safety, success, disappointment, unpredictability, or powerlessness can influence not only how we respond to the present, but what we come to expect from the future. When experience repeatedly teaches us that our actions make little difference, our field of possibility can narrow. When we encounter new environments, relationships, or experiences that challenge our assumptions, that field can begin to widen again.

This matters for wellbeing because hope is not simply a pleasant emotional state. The ability to perceive even one viable path forward can change how we relate to difficulty. A future that feels completely closed creates a very different internal experience from one in which some possibility remains. At the same time, we cannot simply think our way into hope. Circumstances are real, opportunities are not distributed equally, and not every difficulty can be changed through mindset. But our sense of possibility is shaped, at least in part, through experience. And what has been shaped through experience can sometimes be expanded through new experience.

From Possibility to Agency

Seeing another possibility is not the same as feeling able to move toward it. This is where agency becomes important. A possibility becomes more tangible when we can see a pathway toward it. In project management, a large goal becomes more manageable when broken into smaller, actionable steps. The same can be true in our lives. Identifying even one step between where we are and where we might go can turn an abstract possibility into something we can begin to engage with.

But pathways are only part of the picture. Change also asks us to stay with uncertainty. The familiar is not always what we want, but it is known. When uncertainty feels overwhelming, our range of responses can narrow and we may return to familiar patterns, even when they no longer fit. As our capacity to remain present with uncertainty expands, so can the space available for choice. We can perceive more options, experiment, and see what happens when we respond differently. A small action can then become evidence that we are able to navigate uncertainty, making the next step feel more possible. Over time, our sense of what we are capable of can expand, not because uncertainty disappears, but because we have learned that we can move through it. Agency, then, is not the same as control. It is the experience that our actions can matter within the circumstances we are in. 

The relationship between hope and agency is also not entirely linear. Hope can help us imagine a possibility and create movement toward it. But sometimes action comes first. We take one step before feeling particularly hopeful, and the experience itself changes what we believe is possible. Hope can create movement, but movement can also create hope.

Expanding the Field of Possibility

If hope, possibility, and agency can reinforce one another, how do we create conditions that allow that relationship to expand? One place to begin is awareness. Reflection, meditation, and somatic practices can help us notice assumptions we have begun to treat as facts, or automatic responses that narrow our sense of choice before we have considered what else might be available. Exposure matters too. New environments, conversations, perspectives, and examples of people living differently can introduce possibilities we may not have encountered before. Sometimes we cannot imagine an alternative simply because we have never seen one. Small, achievable actions can also matter. We do not always need a complete plan or complete confidence before beginning. Taking one manageable step can create new information, strengthen our sense of agency, and reveal possibilities that were not visible from where we started. And none of this happens only at the individual level. Relationships, communities, and environments can either widen or constrain what feels possible. Sometimes another person can hold a possibility for us before we can hold it ourselves. Sometimes the possibility itself does not yet feel safe, but the relationship does. Through coregulation, supportive relationships can help us remain present with uncertainty and create more room for experimentation and choice. This may be one of the most important links between hope and wellbeing: hope does not ask us to deny what is difficult. It helps us orient toward what may still be possible within it. Agency then asks: within what I cannot control, where do I still have some choice? 

Perhaps we can ask ourselves: What have I stopped allowing myself to imagine? What is one possibility I can see from here? What small step might show me something I cannot yet see? The art of possibility may not be believing that anything can happen. It may be learning to see beyond what our past has taught us to expect, while recognizing where we can still participate in shaping what comes next. 

Hope gives us an opening. Possibility gives that opening form. Agency allows us to move within it. And sometimes, simply a little bit of movement changes what we are able to hope for.