“If you fall, fall on your back. If you can look up, you can get up.” ~ Les Brown
I first heard that phrase from the motivational speaker Les Brown nearly 25 years ago. I haven’t forgotten it, and I live by it. The main message is to keep getting up. The character Rocky Balboa’s theme is about getting up. No matter how hard life hits, you keep getting up. The phrase from Les Brown and the inspiration from Rocky’s desire to keep getting up is what I have lived by for most of my adult life.
The getting up part is only part of the story. Most of the time, when we think about getting up, we think about survival. “I am surviving” is a phrase we often say when challenges come our way. Here’s a question that we should ask ourselves; do we really just want to survive? Over the years, I have replaced the word “survive” with Thrive. The difference between the two words is significant. Survive states that things have happened to you, and you still exist, whereas Thrive means that you have used the opportunity that the challenge provided to launch you to a new level of being.
Often, people see challenges as negatives, but we can turn that into a learning experience that helps us move forward. We shouldn’t settle on surviving; we should opt for thriving instead.