If You Can Look Up You Can Get Up

The title of this post is a result of something I’ve heard motiviational speaker Les Brown say during his talks. If you can look up you can get up. What it means is that when times are tough as long as you’re still alive you can bounce back. It’s about not wallowing in your problems and thinking the situations that you’re in are hopeless. Another quote from the motiviational sales trainer Jim Rohn frames the issue perfectly. It goes something like this. What happens to you happens to everyone.

I know that in the past I’ve had a tendency to adopt a defeatist attitude towards situations occuring in my life, basically declaring defeat when things went against me. Sometimes it had to do with relationships Other times it had to do with finances. Other times it had to do with my health. Then there were the unexpected things like a car accident. It’s true that all of the above things happen to everyone. But when you’re invested in a defeatist mindset you think they only happen to you. You think that you’re resigned to a life of misery and misfortune. You’re not. The world is not out to get you…although I know it can certainly feel that way at times!

We all take losses (or “Ls”) in this life. In fact, the more intrepid a person is the more Ls they’re likely to take. Successful people know that one defeat is not a sign of total defeat. It’s only a sign that either you need to do something a bit different or that you may have had bad luck on a particular day. The one key difference that I’ve seen between people who are finding success in life and those who feel unsatisfied is their reaction to setbacks. Successful people take their L in a given situation and move forward. It’s not that they don’t feel disappointment and it’s not that they don’t get frustrated at times. It’s that successful people limit how frustration and disappointment affects them.

There are times when I’m out and about in the world and see someone who is dealing with much more challenging things than I am yet still doing what they can to live life to the fullest. Those instances are always a reminder that some people face great challenges on a daily basis but choose to focus on overcoming those challenges rather than wallowing in their misfortune. I often read stories about people who have faced adversity when attempting to achieve great things in their lives. That is also a reminder to me that the success and happiness that other people achieve does not occur without headwinds or bumps in the road to where they’re going.

If you can look up you can get up. Things really started to change for me when I embraced that attitude. I wouldn’t let a bad day turn into a bad week. I wouldn’t let a bad week turn into a bad month. Such an attitude can drag out much longer than that. Ever had a bad year? Plenty of people do because they allow their negative attitudes to control them. What would you give to take back your worst year and have a do over? Obviously you can’t take it back but you can plan to not let this year slide away from you.

I will end this post by paraphrasing a parable that I once heard from Dr. Wayne Dyer. It went something like this.

A man’s son found a wild horse and the man’s neighbor talked about what a good thing that was. Maybe, the man replied.

While trying to break in the wild horse the man’s son broke his arm and the man’s neighbor commented that it was awful. Maybe, the man replied.

Soon after the son broke his arm the military came looking for able bodied young men to fight, and the neighbor commented to the man that it was good that his son was injured. Maybe, the man replied.

From the progression of the above situations I think you get the idea that you never really know what the ultimate meaning of a situation may be. Something that appears to be good can lead to something bad, but something that appears bad can also lead to something good. For those reasons, take Ls as they come and strive to overcome adversity instead to wallowing in the darkness of your perceived misfortune.