pull oneself up by one's bootstraps
Succeed without help
To pull oneself up by one's bootstraps is to improve one's situation through one's own efforts, without outside help.
The phrase originally described an impossible act—you can't lift yourself by tugging on your own boots—but now typically appears without irony in discussions of self-reliance and economic mobility: He pulled himself up by his bootstraps and built a business empire.
Critics note the phrase often ignores advantages or assistance people actually received.
- accomplishmentSuccessful completion of aim
- determinationFirmness of purpose
- resilienceCapacity to recover quickly
- independenceFreedom from external control
- initiativeSelf-directed action capacity
perseverance · grit · resourcefulness · progress · self-discipline · inner strength · ambition · idiom · meritocracy · rags to riches · self-made · self made man · rugged individualism · fortitude · prosperity · figure of speech · industriousness · self-sufficiency
pull oneself up by one's bootstrapsborn with a silver spoon in one's mouth
Wealthy from the start
pull oneself up by one's bootstrapsgive up
Stop attempting something
pull oneself up by one's bootstrapssystemic inequality
Embedded societal unfairness
social safety net · community support · check your privilege · white privilege · class privilege
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