The 12 Riches of Life: Hope of Achievement

The Fifth Form of True Wealth

The fifth of twelve types of life riches identified by Napoleon Hill in Think and Grow Rich is

The Hope of Achievement

At first glance, that phrase can feel deceptively simple. Hope is a word we use casually—sometimes to describe a passing desire, other times a vague optimism about the future. But the kind of hope Hill is pointing to is far more substantial.

It is not a wish. It is not a fantasy.

It is a confident expectation—one rooted in purpose, clarity, and freedom from fear.

When we examine this idea through a biblical lens, the concept of hope becomes even richer, deeper, and more eternal in scope.

Hope as an Invisible Treasure

Before we talk about achievement, we need to understand something remarkable about hope itself.

Hope is one of three invisible treasures that continue to exist even within a perfect and ideal world. What we're ultimately after is not material wealth. Having an abundance of material provisions (or at least no lack of them) can help bridge the gap to what we actually desire, and that is time, energy, and the capacity for securing those invisible treasures—which we can feel within us, but we cannot touch.

The Apostle Paul captures this beautifully:

"For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known. So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love."

(1 Corinthians 13:12–13)

Here, hope is not described as temporary or incomplete. It abides. It remains—even in an ideal and perfect world. That alone tells us something important: hope is not merely a bridge we cross on the way to fulfillment. It is part of the destination itself.

Hope as Confident Expectation

Biblically speaking, hope is not a fragile thing. It is not "I hope this works out." It is a settled expectation that something future will, at a specific time, become present reality.

As events unfold, hope moves from the future into the present and becomes lived experience. And once that experience is realized, hope does not disappear—it is renewed, expanded, and multiplied.

King Solomon captures this dynamic perfectly:

"Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a desire fulfilled is a tree of life."

(Proverbs 13:12)

Why is a fulfilled desire described as a tree of life?

Because achievement does more than satisfy a momentary longing. It produces ongoing joy from the remembrance or the present experience of it.

It builds confidence and expands vision.

From one fulfilled hope, new hopes emerge—stronger, clearer, and more expansive than before. And that tree of life stretches its branches further, so that it feeds and heals the world around it.

Hope, then, is not something we outgrow. It is something we grow into. Achievement does not end hope—it deepens it.

An Ever-Unfolding Journey

This understanding challenges a common misconception: that hope exists only until we "arrive."

In reality, hope is not a placeholder for fulfillment. It is an ever-unfolding story—layer upon layer, horizon after horizon. Even in a perfected state, human nature is not erased; it is restored, prioritized, and aligned with what is eternal.

The perfect is not a state of nothingness—where there is no desire, no trace of human nature. It's human nature revived, perfected, and prioritized in the proper order.

It's founded on the invisible, and springing up into the visible.

Therefore we hope, because we live. And we grow eternally into the depths, the breadth, the endless expanse of the experience and comprehension of God.

Hope of Achievement vs. Abstract Hope

This brings us back to Napoleon Hill.

When Hill speaks of the Hope of Achievement, he is not talking about abstract optimism or generalized positivity. He is referring to hope that is specific—hope directed toward what you believe you are called to achieve in this life.

This is not interchangeable with faith, though the two are closely connected.

In Hill's framework, the Capacity for Faith follows the Hope of Achievement. That ordering matters.

Why?

Because before faith can act, it needs direction.

Hope without faith becomes a daydream.
Faith without hope becomes a pursuit of disconnected objectives.

You must first know where you are going before you can meaningfully act in that direction.

Freedom from Fear Comes First

There is another crucial ordering in Hill's 12 riches that often gets overlooked.

Freedom from Fear comes before Hope of Achievement.

That's because fear corrupts hope at the root.

You can hold a form of hope while remaining fearful—but that hope becomes fragile and ineffective. Instead of being rooted in confidence, it becomes entangled with anxiety, self-doubt, and the fear of failure. At that point, hope is no longer a confident expectation—it is a passive wish that things were different.

That sort of tainted hope is rooted in the misdirection of desire—hope in an external outcome as the core priority, rather than an internal state of being.

True hope of achievement requires freedom from fear. Only then can expectation be anchored in confidence rather than self-protection.

The Qualities of Hope: Joy, Peace, and Patience

Paul gives us further insight into the nature of hope by connecting it with three qualities: joy, peace, and patience.

"Rejoice in hope, be patient in tribulation, be constant in prayer."

(Romans 12:12)

"May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope."

(Romans 15:13)

While Paul is primarily speaking about hope in God's redemptive action, these characteristics translate directly into the hope of achievement.

Why Hope Does Not Disappoint

Here's a very important key that Paul gives us:

"And hope does not put us to shame, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us."

Romans 5:5

Why doesn't hope put us to shame?

Because, Paul says, God's love is within us.

Love is the ultimate reason that hope is not put to shame—and divine, eternal, unconditional love is a gift only possible through the Holy Spirit's presence within us.

Hope does not disappoint because it is not anchored to outcomes alone.

This is the crucial distinction. If hope were merely confidence that a specific external result will occur exactly as imagined, then disappointment would always be lurking just beneath the surface. Markets change. People fail us. Plans unfold differently than expected. Achievement of a specific end, measured purely in the tangible world, is never guaranteed on our timetable.

But the kind of hope we are talking about here is deeper than temporal outcomes.

At the core of all hopes and expectations, all dreams and desires, is one thing—a yearning after love. Not just surface love. Not just one type of human love, like brotherly love or romantic love or parental love—but a kind of love that cannot be described or contained or fully understood by the five senses or the mind. It can only be experienced in the heart—because ultimately who we desire is God, and what we call love is simply trying to pin a word on the nature of His being.

That's why hope doesn't disappoint. Because regardless of the actual, tangible outcome in our material world, we possess the love of God—in fact, God Himself. And so long as that remains the truth, hope does not disappoint.

When hope is rooted in love rather than control, disappointment loses its power.

This is also why hope is resilient. It can endure seasons where progress is slow. It can survive setbacks without collapsing into despair. It can adapt without abandoning direction. Hope of this kind is not fragile optimism. It is grounded confidence.

This is the hope that allows someone to stay the course when results lag behind effort. It's the hope that keeps a person moving forward when the path ahead is not yet fully visible. It's the hope that refuses to interpret delay as denial.

Jesus and the Hope of Achievement

One of the most powerful aspects of hope is that it allows you to live from the future rather than merely toward it.

Jesus applied this idea in a fascinating way. When he read the writings of the Law and the Prophets, he did not see them as confined to the past or postponed to the distant future—he saw them as alive and applicable in the present moment.

When he read about forty years of wandering in the desert, he applied it to his own forty days in the wilderness.
When he read about water turning to blood, he transformed water into wine.
When he read about resurrection, he didn't wait for a cosmic event—he went and raised the dead.
When he read about the year of the Lord's favor in Isaiah, he declared that it was being fulfilled this year.

A striking example appears in the exchange with Martha after her brother Lazarus had died. Martha said, "I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day." Jesus replied, "I am the resurrection and the life."
—John 11:24–25

And then he proceeded to bring what was expected on the "last day" into the present day.

In essence, Jesus understood that if God was like that in the past, then God was like that today. And if God was like that in the future, then God was like that today as well. In his mind, why simply reminisce about the past or wait for a distant future? God was on the throne now, and He was the same God in the present as He was in both the past and the future.

This offers an extraordinary example of the essence of hope properly understood. It allows us to live from the perspective of a future outcome that is already secure in God's hands—simply doing our part now in a way that feels natural, faithful, and aligned with where we are ultimately headed.

The Abundant Life and the Hope of Achievement

The Hope of Achievement, as applied to the abundant life, is the confident expectation that the pursuit of your Definiteness of Purpose—why you were put on this earth—will absolutely be met with success. And in that full confidence, you rejoice, experience peace, and act consistently through patience with the understanding that the achievement of this desire has already been signed over to you.