Getting back up
“Everyone falls down. Getting back up is how you learn how to walk. “— Walt Disney
We all fail, we all fall, getting back up is not always easy, but it is the only thing that’s vital.
When we fall, emotionally and physically, it hurts. Sometimes it hurts so much that we don’t want to feel that again, so we close in ourselves or we avoid doing that thing all together. By default we want to avoid the pain as much as possible. But through pain and hard times we are building muscles and mindset.
How to get up
Few years ago, in a Saturday morning I was training on my bike for one of the most important races in that year. I was preparing for it for almost a year and I felt quite confident and ready.
On a steep descend, in a blink of an eye, a car passed really close to me and I made a mistake. I was riding at 60 km / hour when I lost control and crashed. It happened in a blink of an eye. In the next moment, I was sitting on the side of the road covered in blood. My left leg was not looking great and I was feeling a sharp pain in my left shoulder.
I thought that I was done, that my race was over, that this might be the end of the road for me. In that moment the only thing that I wanted to do was to lay down and wait until somebody would come to rescue me. In moments like this, our mindset is put to the test. I had to get up. There was no cavalry that would come to save me, there was no hero coming to take away the pain. I had to do it all by myself.
I gathered my strengths, used the water from my bottle to clean the wounds and analyse the situation. I had a severe road rush on my left part, arm and leg, but no bones were broken. That was good… My bike was not in the best shape, but was good enough so that I can ride it back home.
While I was heading back home slowly, I had to keep my mind busy not to focus on the road rush. I was thinking about the situation and how it is quite similar to an emotional, or career related fall, it happens in a blink of an eye. But what makes us get up? How can we do that every time?
I believe 3 important questions that we have to ask ourselves when we are down. I asked them while I was laying on the side of the road and I think everyone should ask themselves this when they are having a hard time.
- If I die now, will all of this matter? — Sometimes we might miss our priorities, especially when everything looks like a priority.
- Can I do something about it? — We might feel overwhelmed at times, because we believe we can do something about the situation… when in reality we have to accept it and move on.
- Is this just a story I’m telling to myself? — Most of the things that bothers us are not related to the actual situation, but to the story we build around it.
Your turn
Through this article series called “Minutes Mindset” I’m helping you build a solid mindset, writing my point of view on different subjects that we meet in our day by day life. I am a strong believer that once we can understand a subject, we can engage with the idea or refuse it all together. Both ways are helping us grow and develop our own way of seeing the world.
If you like my work, clap on it, share it with your friends and follow me.
In the end everything starts with us, with our mind, our self and even our stories. We can choose to act or Not. If your fitness trainer can help you get fit in the gym, I will help you get a fit Mindset. Let’s connect on Medium, Linkedin, Twitter and share some Ideas
