Ask Lemmy

I think part of being a man is not caring what other men define your manliness as.

If you have an idea that "manning up" involves some change in machismo, I think that might be a little toxic. But, if in not caring that your behavior made other men think about, caused friction, and was then interpreted as machismo, that's better in my book.

If you like the sense of machismo and that phrase helps you as an imaginative aid, then why not. But I think it can be more constructive if you can interpret manliness independent from machismo

Activating survival mode

Monkey Up

While I don't have an exact answer for you I do have two rules that I try to live by that had helped me deal with being an adult:

1. To be an adult, you only need to know when it is apropriate to be childish. - This implies a shitload of stuff, it implies that you know what being childish means, as well as being able to read a situation. I treat it as a reminder that it is ok to keep playing and as long as you do it apropriately you can ignore critics.

2. Don't paint the devil on the wall unless he stands in the hallway, but it won't harm you to have some paint available. - Basically don't constantly prepare for the worst, but should the worst happen, take notes and analyze the situation, and be somewhat prepared to do so.

Some variation of, "Well... Looks like today is my turn to be the adult," is usually what I say to myself when there's some necessary but unpleasant task that I have to take care of.

"Sometimes you've just got to grab your balls and jump"

Toughen up

Don't let your emotions rule you.

I'm also fond of a line from The Matrix: There is no spoon.

I worked with a stunt coordinator once who told one of his guys that he was going to drop him, lying parallel to the ground, from the ceiling. He wouldn’t be able to brace his fall (as he was supposed to be dead), so he told his guy he’d just have to “cowboy up.” Not sure that’s a better phrase, but it’s got more color.

Face your fear. Do you feel scared to do something? That's totally valid and understandable. Do it scared. My point is, don't ignore the feelings. Acknowledge the feelings, then do it anyway.

Suck it up.

Embrace the suck.

Stop being a pussy (I use this sparingly and only around people who I know can handle it. If they take offense, I tell them since I, being a woman, have a pussy, I get to say that. I am reclaiming the word.)

Man up is a masculinization of a notion that equates to common adulting. It's about taking responsibility, which women are obligated to do as much as men in 21st century society.

A related term is to pony up meaning to pay a bill which has a lot of intersection (as many responsibilities are financial, especially those associated with manning up) so pony up could be repurposed.

Take the hit

Do your duty. Take responsibility. Do what needs to be done.

Man up doesn't mean do something stupid, it means do it has to be done, good or bad. Get it done.

Feelings are just chemicals in your brain. Don't let those tiny bastards win.

Adversity is inevitable, mistakes are your greatest teacher. Learn and grow, or become your own prisoner.

If you're going through Hell, keep going.

"Once you've got a task to do, it's better to do it than live with the fear of it."
-Logan nine fingers (Joe Abercrombie)

Helped me a lot in dark times...

It's not useful as a punchy slogan, but in periods of duress I try to step outside my feelings to evaluate my goals and reactions, and then when I have done that analysis I visualize myself doing a kind of DBZ power up sequence, but kind of defensively oriented. It sounds ridiculous and I am explaining it really poorly but it seems to help

I reframe it as a reminder that something is temporary. "I only have to deal with this for x more hours/days/whatever" helps me remember that while I gotta be tough now, I don't necessarily have to be later.

"If it wasn't hard, it wouldn't be worth doing"

My mantras are:
Just do it. 🗸 = stop overanalyzing, start with whatever action you can do right now
Always eat your dessert first. = start with the most enjoyable or easiest part of the task
Be someone else. = pretend it's not you facing the tough situation but someone else who asked you to get them out of it

It's kinda sorta stoicism, just phrased in a judgmental, dismissive way, that is also pointlessly and rather toxically gendered. It's close to the minimum amount of helpfulness "advice" can possibly have.

Being done with stuff feels good if your reward system is working properly. Other than that, while you can have "inertia" issues getting started and that feels kinda stressful, procrastination tends to get stressful too, after a while. At a certain point you'll just have delayed the gratification to fit in some more worried and often unsatisfying faffing around.

Since pushing through whatever seems to work for you and make you feel better, I would focus on that instead of nonsense about not being macho enough.

Old guy at work asks me if I like my job and I say no. He says "Work is for family not for you."

When I was strugging with motivation in getting out to go for a run or whatever I found "Just do it" to be fairly effective. Only later realizing I was lifting the Nike slogan. Still, it works for me.

So far my favorite is "Rise up".

As a self-encouragement strategy, I agree, and often use the same trick.

maximum effort

time to nut up or shut up

never half-ass two things. whole-ass one thing.

There’s a bunch of colloquialisms that express roughly the same thing, as others have mentioned - take your pick.

Nowadays I say "this shit ain't nothing to me" or "it is what it is" a lot. I never thought about it being more gender neutral until this post though.

Buckle up Buckaroo

Edit: The wife and I always use the term "rally". Like, "Here we go a-rallying again" or "we're rally-gals today". So maybe instead of "man-up", you could try "It's time to rally"?

You need to just see this as something that everyone has to deal with. You can feel your feelings still do what you need to do. Ignoring your feelings doesn't make you any more of a man.

'show your courage'

'what cannot be controlled must be endured'

I don't remember the details but there was an Internet story about a dude who'd say "man up" and people explained why that was a problem and he updated to "fortify". And I really like that, because it kinda suggests also getting help where you need it to build up your defenses in order to face the thing you need to face.