How To Keep Getting Up When You Get Knocked Down
Inhale, exhale, chin up, and learn from the #hurdlemoments as they pass.
This week’s newsletter was about something else entirely until about 2:11 p.m. yesterday, when I was sitting at my desk in a grey jumpsuit with tears streaming down my face. Four times this week, I got work-related news that really bummed me out. Like, to the extent that I shed a few of the aforementioned tears. One email about a project that I poured hours and hours into (over the holidays, no less) that got canned because of a shift in company strategy. Another about a long-awaited guest canceling on our recording. The others … well … you get the idea. This week punched back.
Inhale.
Exhale.
Chin up.
Staring out my window, I went back and forth between two headspaces. The first, the “it’s all okay!” vibe. “You’ve earned your seat at these tables. That’s a big deal! Look at you, talking about all of these cool things! This is awesome! These things not working out means that there’s room for some other thing. That thing! That’s gonna be the thing!”
The second: “Why do I keep getting knocked down?”
Cue the waterworks.
I’ve told this story a handful of times, but when I was working as the fitness editor at SELF in 2016, I interviewed hurdler Dawn Harper-Nelson for a package we were doing about the Olympics. She told me about the 2015 World Championships that didn’t go as she’d hoped in Beijing. Shortly after the starting gun went off, she tripped over the second hurdle, toppling to the ground. She was devastated. After the race was done, she navigated away from where the media waited. She didn’t want to talk about what happened. She debated jumping a fence to escape unseen. Then, she stopped and took a breath.
Harper-Nelson realized in that moment that she could use this failure of sorts (a literal #hurdlemoment) as a learning opportunity. She gave herself a couple minutes to be down about the mishap, and then turned around and faced the truth.
Essentially, this interview reiterated a concept that I go back to time and time again: It’s OK to have your moment. It’s OK to go through that second headspace. It’s OK to not be strong all of the time. What isn’t OK is to linger in it. To be in that whoa is me mindset for too long. Because that isn’t going to get us anywhere in the long run. Personally, I got a lot of places that I want to go.
So, headspace No. 1, it is.
I’m opening up to all of you about this because it gets really exhausting to feel like you’re the only person whose life isn’t going swimmingly. We’re so overly exposed to people crushing the game (or making it look that way) via social media. Time after time, I open up here and on the show because I want you to know that you’re not alone in whatever struggle you may be dealing with. I know damn well that I’m not the only person sitting at her desk with tears on her grey jumpsuit. (Also, because I think we were all targeted with ads — and many subsequently purchased — said jumpsuit.)
Inhale.
Exhale.
Chin up.
Forward, we go.
PROMPT: For me, it’s always about coming back to gratitude. What are three things that happened this week that are your silver lining?