Do You Get Back Up and Focus on New, Stronger Confidence When You Fall?
Everybody will fall from time to time. How you get back up, however, is a choice.
Last week, I began a couple of new freelance gigs.
This has been excellent. I am enjoying doing both. They are quite different from one another – and each completely in my wheelhouse.
What’s more, they feel very much as if they are part of my path.
However, in getting adjusted to a new timetable and the requirements of these new gigs – I have fallen down on the job, so to speak.
What does that mean? As I’ve written before, I keep a spreadsheet of my daily activities. This is how I keep myself on track to get the things done I need to do. Some of them are specific to mindset and headspace while others are more goal-oriented.
But last week, I failed to do several of my activities more than once. In doing other things for the new freelance jobs – I didn’t do all the things I do daily.
Why? In part, this was due to poor time management. I didn’t properly adapt myself to do my things while also doing the new gigs. Both gigs were taken on partially because more money flowing into my life will open some closed channels – and in part, because these jobs open new and useful creative avenues.
This week, I am working on fixing last week’s problems. And that’s because when I fall, I know that I need to get back up.
When the fall isn’t literal – getting back up isn’t always easy.
Tripping hazards along every path
Despite outward appearances to the contrary – nobody has a perfect, incident-free life.
Let me repeat that. NOBODY HAS A PERFECT, INCIDENT-FREE LIFE.
Everybody – yes, everybody – falls from time to time. Literally and metaphorically.
I have learned, when I literally fall, to roll with it. Most people break bones or suffer injuries when they stiffen up as they fall. Bracing against an impact puts that energy into one place and can cause injury. I stay loose and roll with it. I get back up and keep going.
It’s a lot harder to roll it with when the fall is metaphorical.
Life is uncertain – and there are tons of things that you and I have no control over. Other people, circumstances, and random happenstance impact you in unexpected ways.
Such falls look like this:
- You get fired
- A car accident hospitalizes you
- You get dumped
- Someone swindles you
- Your query gets rejected
- Someone else gets the promotion
- You learn your goal is not truly what you desire
Each of these can utterly trip you up along your path. But when they cause you to fall – do you get back up – or lie there, broken and defeated?
That’s the choice we make.
Get back up or stay down
Every time we fall, we decide if we will stay down or get back up.
When we literally fall, getting back up is the logical conclusion. This is only complicated if we get hurt in the landing.
A metaphorical fall, however, leaves a choice. While getting up is logical – it’s often complicated by many factors.
Hurt feelings can leave deeper scars than surgical incisions. The surface scar may be obvious – but the damaged tissue below is unseen. It’s far harder to get up from that than a literal fall.
This is why it’s a choice. When you get hurt, fail, lose, or experience any other kind of fall, you choose to get back up. Or not.
What does metaphorically not getting up look like? Alcohol abuse, crippling depression, suicidal behavior, withdrawal, anxiety, and similar greater and lesser reactions. The choice that is made is to stay down and languish.
Of course, some things are harder to get up from than others. I am in no way discounting that. Trauma and its impact is different in everyone. But so long as you are living, you can choose to get back up when you fall.
As the Japanese proverb goes,
“Nana korobi ya oki (fall down seven times and get up eight).”
Some of the greatest lessons we learn in life come from – and after – a fall.
So long as we are drawing breath, we have options. And a fall can often be one hell of a life lesson.
Undesirable, maybe. But still useful.
Lessons learned from falls
Many of the most successful people in their industry “fell” at one time or another. They failed and fell multiple times along the way.
And many of them are well known today. Henry Ford, Steve Jobs, Michael Jordan, Hillary Clinton – all of them fell along the way, yet managed to get back up. (I am not relaying their stories here – but Google them if you want to know more).
In the words of my favorite Jedi Grand Master, Yoda,
“The greatest teacher failure is.”
When we fall, we can get back up. So long as we live, we can stand. It might be challenging, might not be easy, and/or it may require assistance – but we can get back up again.
Every failure, misstep, mistake, and error can be a lesson. Each lesson teaches us something that may be of tremendous value going forward.
They might be hard lessons. You learn there are people you can’t trust, experiences not worth having, and maybe even the path you believe you should be on isn’t right. But you can always get back up and keep going so long as you live.
Get back up and try anew
We all fall from time to time. It’s an unavoidable fact of life. But after we fall, we get back up.
It might take a while, and it might not be the same as it was before you fell. But that doesn’t mean it will be bad. In fact, it might be amazing.
When I got hit by a car crossing a street – and spent a year recovering – that was a hell of a fall. But it showed me more about who I am – and who I can be – than I could ever have imagined before.
I still work hard to achieve my goals and be the most optimum me that I can be. And I fall sometimes. But I get back up – every time – and keep going.
Life is, for me, most exciting when I learn new things and have new experiences. Getting up after a fall can be an eye-opening experience that might change you for the better.
Literally or figuratively – when you fall, you choose to get back up. Or not. But when you literally fall – do you stay down and miss out on what’s happening around you? So long as you live, no, you get back up again. Why not do the same when the fall is metaphorical?
Unless you plan to drop dead then and there – you get back up when you fall. This should be as true when the fall is intangible as when it’s tangible. Do it again. Maybe the same, maybe differently. But you keep on keeping on.
Everybody will fall from time to time. How you get back up, however, is a choice. Be confident and know you are stronger from the fall when you get back up.
How do you get back up when you take a fall?
This is the five-hundred and twelfth exploration of my Pathwalking philosophy. These weekly essays are ideas for – and my personal experiences with – mindfulness and walking along a chosen path of life to consciously create reality.
I share this journey as part of my desire to make a difference in this world. Additionally, I desire to empower as many people as I can with conscious reality creation.
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The first year of Pathwalking, including expanded ideas, is available here. Check out Amazon for my published fiction and nonfiction works.
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