You Don’t Lose If You Get Knocked Down, You Lose If You Stay Down

On December 30, 2022, I landed in Thailand with a plan I had been mentally preparing for weeks. For six weeks, I would do almost nothing but train, eat healthily, swim and sleep. Six days a week, two training sessions a day. My good friend and personal trainer would join me on Koh Chang three days later to make sure I did not suddenly decide after one week that one workout a day was actually quite athletic enough.

I knew it would be tough. That was precisely why I wanted to do it.

What I did not know was that within half an hour of arriving, I would break my ankle again. The same ankle. In almost exactly the same place as three years earlier.

No six weeks of training. No swimming. No physical reset.

Just six weeks of sitting still.

The sentence above this article is often attributed to Muhammad Ali. A reliable primary source is difficult to find, so I will not put the words in his mouth with certainty. That does not make the thought behind them any less interesting.

Because what does getting back up actually mean when a plan disappears with a single hard crack you can see in this inspiring YouTube video.

Six weeks of training became six weeks of sitting still

I had not been to Koh Chang for three years. The last time I was there, I slipped after seven days and broke my ankle. A planned three-month working holiday ended abruptly. Then came the Covid travel restrictions, and it took years before I returned.

I arrived at my hotel at around five in the afternoon. From the lobby, I could almost see the place where I had fallen three years earlier. I checked in but did not even take the time to put my suitcase away properly. I wanted to get to the beach.

For me, sunset is the most beautiful moment of the day. Especially on Koh Chang, where the sun slowly turns red before disappearing behind several small, uninhabited islands. You can watch the same scene every evening and it still remains extraordinary.

With my backpack still on, I walked through the resort towards the sea. I could smell the salt water before I could see the beach. Once I reached the terrace, I kicked off my flip-flops and made a small jump down onto the sand.

Less than fifty centimetres.

Crack.

Pain shot through my ankle. I fell backwards and watched it swell in front of my eyes. My first thought was not philosophical, spiritual or resilient.

My first thought was roughly: this cannot be happening again.

The local hospital confirmed the following day what I already knew. I had broken my ankle again, almost in exactly the same place as three years earlier. I called my friend and told him he did not need to book his flight. The training programme could be scrapped. Swimming was out of the question too. My main activity for the coming weeks would consist of keeping my leg elevated.

I was disappointed. Of course I was. I had been looking forward to the training, the physical challenge and the feeling of being completely fit again after six weeks.

That disappointment did not need to be reframed immediately. My ankle was broken and my plan had failed. At that moment, that was simply the reality.

But that reality contained something else.

Time.

A great deal of time.

For some time, I had been carrying an idea for a new book. A book about doing good and becoming better yourself. I wanted to research it and begin writing, but as often happens with plans that have no deadline, something else always got in the way. Clients, businesses, conversations, new ideas and all the small things that seem important enough on an average day to be given priority.

Now I could not go anywhere.

So I began reading, researching and writing. The physical reset I had prepared for turned into an intellectual and personal reset I had never planned.

Less than five months later, my second book was on the shelf.

Breaking my ankle was not a gift

Looking back, I have sometimes called my broken ankle a gift from life. It sounds appealing, but it is not entirely accurate.

The fracture itself was not a gift. I would have preferred an unbroken ankle, six weeks of intensive training and, ideally, a finished book as well. But that was not the reality I was given.

The gift was in the space that opened up and in what I decided to do with that space.

That distinction may seem small, but it is essential. Anyone who immediately calls every painful event a gift risks denying the pain, damage and disappointment. Not every illness brings wisdom. Not every bankruptcy opens a better door. Not every broken relationship turns out to have been a blessing. Sometimes you lose something you will never get back.

We do not have to romanticise a blow to prevent it from determining the rest of our lives.

“Resilience is not pretending the blow did not hurt. It is preventing the blow from deciding where you remain lying.” Ben Steenstra

My ankle was broken. I could no longer change that. But its meaning and what happened next had not yet been completely determined.

That was where my influence began.

Resilience is not the same as recovering quickly

People often talk about resilience as if certain individuals possess a mental trampoline. They fall, bounce straight back up and continue with a smile. Anyone who remains sad, angry or confused for longer is then considered less resilient.

It is not that simple.

Psychologist George Bonanno made an important distinction between recovery and resilience in his influential research. Recovery means that a person temporarily functions less well after a serious disruption and gradually returns to their previous level. Resilience means that someone continues to function relatively steadily despite a potentially disruptive event.

In his review of research into loss, trauma and human resilience, Bonanno concluded that resilience is probably far more common than researchers had long assumed. There is also no single type of resilient person and no single correct route for moving forward after a shocking event.

A later study involving 2,752 New York residents following the September 11 attacks made this more concrete. The researchers defined resilience as experiencing no more than one symptom of post-traumatic stress during the first six months. They found this pattern in 65.1 per cent of participants. Even among the most heavily exposed groups, the proportion of resilient people did not fall below one third.

A broken ankle and a terrorist attack are obviously incomparable. The research nevertheless demonstrates something fundamental: people respond very differently to disruptive events, and long-term psychological destabilisation is not the only normal response.

Resilience also does not mean that nothing affects you. You can feel grief and still be resilient. You can spend several days feeling furious, sleep badly, need support and still be recovering. Remaining down for a while is not the same as giving up.

Sometimes staying down is precisely what recovery requires.

It becomes a problem when your pain slowly turns into an identity and the event becomes proof that there is nothing more you can do.

Reframing does not help in every situation

We are often told to reframe what happens. Look for the positive. See the situation from another perspective. Ask yourself what you can learn from it.

That can be valuable, but only when it fits the situation.

Researchers Allison Troy, Amanda Shallcross and Iris Mauss studied how cognitive reappraisal related to stress and depressive symptoms among 170 participants. Cognitive reappraisal means consciously trying to look at a situation differently and thereby changing its emotional meaning.

Under circumstances that were difficult to control, a greater ability to reappraise was associated with fewer depressive symptoms. When the situation itself could no longer be changed, changing its meaning appeared to help.

But under circumstances where people could still take action, the researchers found the opposite pattern. Greater use of reappraisal was associated with more depressive symptoms.

That makes sense when you think about it.

Once your ankle is broken, there is little point in continuing to negotiate with the past. It can then help to accept what can no longer be changed and examine what is still possible.

But when an employee treats you badly, a business loses money every month or a relationship is demonstrably unhealthy, positive reframing can become a way to postpone necessary action. You do not need to learn to view the situation more positively. You need to do something.

That is why the distinction between influence, responsibility and control matters so much.

What can no longer be changed often requires acceptance and a new meaning. What can still be influenced requires a decision and usually action.

Optimism is valuable, but only when it helps you face reality more effectively. An optimistic mindset that blinds you to what needs to change is not a strength. It is procrastination wearing a cheerful jacket.

Growth does not come from the event itself

Psychologists Richard Tedeschi and Lawrence Calhoun introduced the concept of post-traumatic growth to describe positive changes people sometimes experience after a serious life crisis. In their research and theoretical model, they describe changes such as a greater appreciation of life, deeper relationships, a stronger sense of personal strength, different priorities and greater existential or spiritual depth.

One important detail is often forgotten.

According to their definition, growth does not come from the traumatic event itself. It comes from the struggle with it.

Loss does not automatically make you wiser. Divorce does not automatically make you stronger. Bankruptcy does not automatically make you a better entrepreneur. Growth emerges when you are forced to re-examine your previous assumptions, expectations and beliefs, and then genuinely do something with what you discover.

Even then, we need to remain cautious.

A critical scientific review of post-traumatic growth warns that perceived growth may consist of different components. Part of it may be genuine change. Another part may be a protective story that helps someone cope with pain. People can sincerely believe they have become stronger without that strength later becoming visible in their behaviour.

That does not make the personal experience worthless. It simply means that saying you have learned something is not the same as demonstrably living differently.

Perhaps that is the most honest test: Which choice do you make differently now than you did before the setback?

If nothing changes in your behaviour, boundaries, priorities or relationships, you may mainly have developed a compelling story about growth.

What is the difference between bad luck and a setback?

Bad luck is about chance. An unfavourable event that was unlikely to happen but happened anyway. Breaking the same ankle twice in almost exactly the same place, for example, feels like an extraordinary amount of bad luck.

A setback is broader. It occurs when reality collides with a goal, expectation or desire. You wanted something to happen and it did not. Or you wanted to prevent something from happening and it happened anyway.

That is why the same event can be a major setback for one person and mean very little to someone else. A cancelled flight is inconvenient when you are going on holiday, but devastating when it prevents you from reaching a dying family member in time.

Both the event and our interpretation matter.

We do not have to pretend everything is merely a thought. Reality can genuinely take something away from us. At the same time, the first meaning we give an event does not automatically determine what that event will eventually mean for our lives.

Some meanings only emerge months or years later.

With several major events in my own life, it took years before I could see what they had taught me. Other experiences mainly cost me something, and I still do not know what positive story I am supposed to attach to them.

That is all right too.

Not every wound needs an inspirational caption.

How do you deal with adversity without thinking the pain away?

When something goes wrong, we often search for an explanation too quickly. Why is this happening? What am I supposed to learn from it? What possible purpose could this serve?

Those questions can be valuable, but usually not as a first step.

Begin by acknowledging what actually happened. Not what might eventually emerge from it, but what you have lost now. A plan, money, trust, health, a relationship, a business or an image of the future. If you skip the loss, positivity becomes an anaesthetic.

Then distinguish between what is fixed and what can still be influenced. My ankle was broken. There was no point organising another meeting about it. What I did with my time was still open. This distinction prevents you from wasting energy on the irreversible or remaining passive in a situation you can still change.

Next, choose the smallest meaningful movement. You do not need an entirely new life plan immediately. Sometimes the first step is a phone call, communicating a boundary, gathering information, asking for help or simply opening a document and writing the first sentence. Personal growth rarely comes from one grand insight. It usually emerges because you start acting differently after an insight.

Allow the eventual meaning to develop afterwards. On the day the setback occurs, you do not need to know what it might ultimately be good for. Some lessons only become visible once you have enough distance. Other events remain painful, even when you have learned to live with them more effectively.

This approach is consistent with a growth mindset, but without the superficial promise that everything happens for a reason. Growth means remaining open to development. It does not mean you are required to call every loss positive.

“Not every setback is a gift. But every setback reveals a choice you did not have to make before it happened.” Ben Steenstra

The same ankle, a different outcome

My broken ankle did not write the book.

Thousands of people break a bone every year without publishing a book afterwards. The fracture only created a reality I had never asked for. Within that reality, space appeared, and within that space, I could still make a choice.

I could also have spent six weeks feeling angry with the terrace, the resort, my flip-flops, the sand, my ankle and life in general. Nobody would probably have blamed me for that during the first few days.

But at some point, my disappointment would no longer have been protecting anything. It would only have been consuming time.

So I opened my laptop.

Not because breaking my ankle had suddenly become something positive, but because I refused to lose the rest of those six weeks as well as my training plan.

For me, that is the essence of dealing with adversity. You do not have to jump straight back up. You do not have to smile while it hurts. You do not have to convince yourself that everything happened exactly as it was supposed to happen.

But sooner or later, you have to look again at what is still there.

Sometimes it is less than you hoped.

Sometimes it turns out to be something you would never have seen without the blow.

And sometimes getting back up simply begins by opening an empty document and writing the first sentence.

Would you like to examine the meaning you are giving to a setback and where you still have influence? You can discuss it directly with AI Ben. Not to talk the pain away, but to see more clearly what is fixed, what you are adding yourself and which next movement is still possible.

About the author

Ben Steenstra is an entrepreneur, executive coach, author and AI sparring partner. He supports entrepreneurs, founders and leaders with business and personal questions involving entrepreneurship, leadership, purpose, change and quality of life.