Falling Isn’t the Problem; It’s Not Getting Up

Throughout your life you will fall, falter, or fail. However, having either of these tragic experiences doesn’t designate you as a failure or indicate the end of the world or the end of your life. Falling, faltering, or failing are not the issues. The issues are what you experience on your way down, how you view yourself and your experiences once you are down, as well as your need, your want, and your willingness to rise again.

Life itself can deal you some tough hands, but you must learn how to manage and read the cards that you are dealt, instead of becoming the cards. Disappointment is always waiting to knock on your doors of life or to knock you down throughout your life. However, until you recognize that you do have the power, you do have the authority, and you do have the right to choose how you stand against and combat life’s ills, without constantly falling, faltering, and failing, you will continue to welcome disappointment into your home and into your life, believing that you don’t have a choice in the matter.

Even more difficult than having to deal with life’s falls, falters, and failures, is the fact that you can’t seem to wrap your mind around them, understand them, or make sense of them. In essence, it is hard to deal with something that you don’t understand and something that you can’t control. No matter how many losses you face, no matter how many times you stumble, no matter how many times you fall, no matter how many times you fail, the emotional toll you experience can serve as stumbling blocks against you or stepping-stones for you. Although you probably question the role you might have personally played in causing your falls, your falters, or your failures, the answers rarely seem to come.

I am sure that for many of you it seems as if your life has been plagued with one fall, one falter, and one failure after another.  One thing about these disappointments is that they do not have names on them, and you are not the only one having such experiences. Along with being nameless, the outcomes of disappointments are broad and far reaching. And if you haven’t experienced any disappointments yourself, you must be living in an unrealistic state of mind. I’m sure that you know of friends, colleagues, and family members who seem to have more than their fair share of disappointments. As long as you live, there will be one disappointment or another; you will fall, falter, or fail! However, at some point, you must decide that you will no longer fall the same way as you have in the past, and failing will no longer serve as a hindrance to you recognizing your success. You are going to take the lessons garnered from the tragedies and disappointments you have experienced and use them to develop your personal formula for success. However, you must get up!

Disappointments resulting from falls and failures are very difficult and they are just as disastrous as they seem when you are experiencing them. However, the real issues are, how you perceive your disappointments, how you deal with your disappointments, when you come to recognize the lessons being put forth as a result of your disappointments, and what you do with the lessons learned from your disappointments. Too often, you get so caught up in the disappointments of life that you miss the opportunities for learning the lessons being forth in order for you to engage in the positive transformations that are meant to take place. It is imperative that you recognize the importance of getting up and letting go of your disappointments. And if you can’t pull yourself up, find something or someone that you can hold onto as you embrace the recovery process from your falls, your falters, and your failures. God is always there for you; hold onto him, lift your eyes, and your voice in prayer to him! Get up and speak up with positivity!

To keep falling, to keep faltering, and to keep failing without learning lessons and implementing those lessons into your life are signs of insanity. Until you see, hear, and learn from the lessons related to your falls, falters, and failures, you will continuously walk the paths of insanity, falling head first, with your head in the sand, instead of falling feet first, allowing you to finally look up, get up, and climb up and out of the holes in which you have fallen.

When you decide to get up and not wallow in the devastations associated with your falls, falters, and failures, you will come to recognize that you have a choice as to whether you want to belong to the insanity club or not. You can also decide to wallow in your falls, your falters, and your failures, without getting up, or you can decide to look up and get up! You can decide to look at the glass as being half full, instead of being half empty, being the victor and not the victim, by getting up, brushing yourself off, and starting again, without worrying about how it looked to others, what people might say, or what they think. Your worrying, self-deprecation, being emotionally distraught, bing emotionally dependent, coming unhinged, your ‘woe is me’ attitude, as well as your anger, and hatred will not fix your falls, your falters, or your failures; it’s you getting up with a realistic plan of action that will indicate that for you, defeat and failure are no longer options.      

You must come to recognize that each time you fall, each time you falter, and each time you fail, you are experiencing a season in your life. I am sure that through each season of these disappointments, you question whether some negative behaviors that you have put forth against yourself or against others have contributed to the negative occurrences in your life. You also probably ask yourself, ‘Am I receiving payback or being punished for something I did or didn’t do to or for someone else?’ Guess what? God is not siting in heaven slapping his thigh as he kicks up his heels waiting for something negative to happen to you. He doesn’t have time!

On the other hand, your falls, falters, and failures aren’t necessarily payback, but they are grand lessons for you and others. As a result, one of the lessons you’ll learn is that you can’t treat people the way you don’t want to be treated and expect to prosper.  Treat people right and you don’t have to worry about the falls, falters, and failures in your life. As a matter of fact, disappointments will occur anyhow; they might be compounded when you tend to forget how you got to where you are and when you step on the heads and backs of people and forget the bridges that brought you across in order to get to where you want to be. Karma really is a bitch!!!

But the greatest question always seems to be, ‘Why me?’ And why not you; aren’t you human? In all actuality, when losses occur, it’s time for you to gather the lessons being put forth by the losses in order for you to experience the next fall, falter, or failure in a different manner. Losses are opportunities for transformation in and around your life! In order for you to transform from being down, lying down, or feeling down, you must gather the strength to get up, determined to stand up and move up and onward!

You must believe that you can stand once again, recognizing that you will fall again, falter again, and fail again, but they won’t occur as they have in the past. You are now stronger, wiser, and more determined to not be defeated. As a matter of fact, you will no longer cry and wallow in your falls, your falters, and your failures, you will examine how they occurred, gain an understanding of the circumstances in which they occurred, clean up the mess (es) that contributed to your falls, your falters, and your failures, deciding that you will walk differently, stand differently, speak differently, feel differently, believe differently, and fall differently…yes you can!  

When you recognize that “Falling Isn’t the Problem; It’s Not Getting Up,” you will come to recognize that you can triumph over life’s disappointments. You can also confront the emotional fallout that occurs when you fall, falter, or fail, and you can forgive yourself and stop blaming others. You are an overcomer who will not stand down, lie down, or stay down! Once you recognize and learn from the lessons that appear from your falls, your falters, and your failures, you will come to see them as set asides instead of setbacks. You will give God all the glory not only for the lessons learned, but for your falls, your falters, and your failures; without them, there would be no lessons and you wouldn't have another chance at living your life in abundance, with purpose, direction, and love!   

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