“I can’t go any farther,” reporter Hallie Martin tells former rodeo star Sonny Steele in the film The Electric Horseman.

“Oh, sure you can,” Sonny says as the pair trudge through the mountains. “I know people who go through stuff. I knew a guy misjudged a Brahma once, put his rib through his right lung. Guy could hardly breathe—he still got up and rode the rankest mare there.”

“I will never understand,” Hallie gasps, “why you find that kind of behavior admirable.”

“Gets you up the hill,” Sonny says.

Like Steele, the worn-out cowboy searching for redemption, I’ve always admired people who take life’s hard kicks but find a way to keep going. Maybe that’s because I’ve taken a few kicks myself. My head’s battered and bruised from pounding against mountains that don’t want to move. And some days when I’m feeling overwhelmed part of me wants to say, “That’s it. I’m done” then plop down and give up. But so far I’ve managed to keep trudging along. It helps to:

• Laugh when you can. I’d been through a six-hour surgery and two transfusions and was criss-crossed with staples and stitches from chest to hip. Four drainage tubes dangled from various parts of my body. But because I knew it was important to get moving, by the second day I’d taken it upon myself to start pushing my IV pole around my room and the hallway. Unfortunately, my surgeon didn’t believe me.

Most of my doctors have been angels, but this one was an egomaniacal jerk. When he popped in at 7 a.m. to demand I start exercising, he didn’t want to hear that I already had been. He smugly cut me off saying, “Then I suppose you’re ready to go home?”

Since I was scheduled to be in the hospital several more days and he thought I couldn’t get out of bed, he assumed I’d cower and say, “No sir.” Instead I said, “Sign the release!” You should have seen his face.

I was so weak I couldn’t change clothes; it’s the only time I’ve left a hospital wearing my surgical gown. But I showed him—ha!

The next day a hurricane hit, knocking out power for 48 hours. So because I just had to show up Dr. Arrogant … instead of being in a comfortable, air-conditioned hospital with nurses to manage my drainage tubes … I wound up stuck in a sweltering house with no power … wrapped in thick bandages from my armpits to my hips … trying to empty and measure the contents of my drainage tubes while holding a flashlight.

Sometimes all you can do is laugh.

• Cry when you must. Being strong and determined doesn’t mean you can’t be vulnerable. We all have bad days, letdowns, tragedies, and heartbreaks. Refusing to acknowledge them, or pretending they don’t hurt, is not the healthy way to move past them. Just the opposite. It’s how people wind up carting around heavy baggage that weighs down their life journey.

Face the pain life delivers, and shed your tears. Then make your peace and move on.

• But never, never, never give up. Those words—the entire text of a commencement address once given by British Prime Minister Winston Churchill—appear on a sign hanging in my office, a magnet on my refrigerator, and a plaque on my desk. They’re a constant reminder that the only surefire way to fail is to quit. You can take a different approach, adopt a new dream, take some time off and try again later, accept the inevitable and move on to something else. But you can never, never, never give up. It takes time, patience, and character to move mountains. Just keep trying—you’ll get the job done.