Many of us, at one time or another, have hit rock bottom, or so we thought. The ground cracks and we hit rock bottom again and again. Use any other phrase if you like. It’s when we feel like it can’t get any worse, but it does. What happens when we think things can’t get any worse? Just then another problem, another catastrophe, a problem we thought would never resurface, we trip, we fall, and we hit rock bottom again. We have no time to breathe, no time to prepare. It drops us with impunity, without any consideration, no understanding, and no mercy. It’s a painful descent from one lower level to the next.
I know that when you hit rock bottom just getting out of bed to face the world is extremely difficult. I've hit many rock bottoms in my life. In my journey, it has been many rock bottoms. I’d hit rock bottom; a crack would open up and I'd fall through and hit another rock bottom. When I thought it couldn’t possibly get any worse, another a crack, and another rock bottom. I know some would argue, I should just say a bottomless pit. I would equate a bottomless pit with you already know you’re facing the worst possible outcome you’re just dropping. Falling through multiple levels of rock bottom is like experiencing a recurring jolt of body slams against the ground, it’s surprising, and it’s never-ending bad news, it’s constant trouble, it’s constant damage. It feels like there’s no time to breathe; there’s no time for repair or recuperation. Staying in bed and under the covers seems like the only solace.
It will help, if you keep in mind hitting rock bottom is subjective. It’s important to remind yourself of this when you don’t receive understanding from someone whom you’ve shared your problems. You’d hope for empathy or sympathy with your situation. It doesn’t help when they might say to you, it’s not that bad, or they experienced worse. You may have someone that will understand and help you but it’s better to be prepared for the alternative. You will likely have to go it alone. Why is this important? Because if you have to go it alone, you won’t waste your energy on the disappointment of no support. With this energy, you will need to pull yourself up from rock bottom. It’s senseless if you are dwelling on someone who doesn’t understand or is unwilling to help. It may sound rather harsh but I’ve been there and dropped down through multiple levels of rock bottom. Sometimes I had help but most other times I had to go it alone.
There is no one easy or it will work for everyone solution, but there is a likely place to begin. While we may want a quick solution, we have to be realistic, life often doesn’t work in that manner. Also, we and our circumstances are unique. The solution should fit our circumstances and not the opposite. However, there does exist a solution but it requires effort, our effort. We need to resolve that no one is going to put more effort into solving our problems than ourselves. To rise from our rock bottom is never easy but we need to coach ourselves that it can be done, that we can do it. We need to be willing to confront none other than ourselves and say it begins with me.
Sometimes the first step can be the hardest. The best place to start raising yourself out of rock bottom is you, but it won’t be easy. Yes, others may have contributed to you getting there. To make any kind of stride towards achieving your desired outcomes requires one of the most challenging obstacles you will face. It requires you to take ownership of your role. It means acknowledging what you did wrong, what you could have done differently, and what is within your control. Acknowledging does not mean dwelling on your mistakes. It means you’ve become aware of your mistakes that contributed to your current position. Knowing what you could have done differently adds to your clarity of potential options to move forward, and what not to do in the future. What is in your control are the actions you will discover you need to take, as well as that which you cannot control, like what others say or do. These things will help you recognize the limits you once placed on yourself. You can become unbounded in thoughts and actions where once you limited yourself by lack of accountability, faulty thinking, and the influence of others you allowed.
You’re in that rock bottom pit that keeps dropping to another level. It’s hard when we're at rock bottom, to persist, to continue, to simply get out of bed and move. When we've been let down, betrayed, abandoned. It can be debilitating experience being kicked when we are down, and our good intentions of the past are ignored. When all those good parts of us have been forgotten. When others judge us so harshly for our faults and have forgotten we are human. And so, we feel there is no patience for us in our moment of crisis.
Instead of saying no one is coming to save me, I prefer think, it's up to me to make things better, to solve my problems. The latter is taking full ownership while the former implies someone can choose to save us or make things better but will not. It helps us to have all our thoughts and efforts of energy on ourselves. Someone might help us but we do not expect anyone to do so. It makes our climb from the multiple levels of rock bottom more satisfying because we did it ourselves. We now know what we can achieve. It’s confident humility. You have taken ownership and now know we must persist alone, but how? Evidence-based coaching offers many options to choose from. I present to you one such option to begin pulling yourself up. Set small, realistic, and achievable goals for yourself. I mentioned previously that sometimes getting out of bed can be a challenge. The world is beating you down. Those that you trusted are now kicking you while your down. What do you do? You get up. That's a goal met. It's small, realistic, and achievable. You build upon that with another small goal. Consider it a victory. It's small but it’s your accomplishment. You've begun to get up and move forward. Pay a bill that you can afford. Make a phone call. Give your full-attention to a task at work. You start exercising because you know science says it benefits your physical and mental health. Even if it’s 5 minutes, it's a start but also a victory. Each day you build upon those 5 minutes until you have incorporated fitness as a routine. Each step in a task, any task, is momentum towards getting past your rock bottom.
After some momentum, let's say you want the comfort of going back to bed, under the sheets, to not face anything. Don't view it as a setback. Set another goal. Reframe would you have said in the past, like, I don’t want to face the world, I don’t want to do anything. Rather, say, I just need to breathe a moment, I am going to set a time frame, then I will get up and I will be ready face the world again. Then get up. That's still a victory, you're still on the journey from climbing out of rock bottom towards the path you choose, and on the way to the discovery of your potential. Ernest Hemingway, said, “I’ll tell you something, the time to prove what you’re made of is not when you are at the top of your form but when you’ve been knocked on you’re a*s and you have to get up off the canvas.” Celebrate the discovery of your potential when you find you can ascend from your multiple levels of rock bottom. One small step, one small action, one level at a time. View it all as progress. I always like to remind my readers about taking advice. I’ve made some suggestions for you to consider. I’ve shared things that have worked for me. More importantly, I’ve shared things that will hopefully evoke you into being your problem solver. If something doesn’t work for you, please resolve that there will be something that works for you. It requires your discovery. The life journey you are on is unique to you and so should be the solutions you discover.
David is the owner of Partnerships for Performance.com a personal transformational coaching company.
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