pull/haul yourself up by the/your (own) bootstraps
to improve your situation without any help from other people:
He left school at 15 and pulled himself up by his bootstraps to ultimately head up a company.
Thesaurus: synonyms and related words
Making things better
- a shot in the arm idiom
- add salt to sth idiom
- allay
- alleviate
- ameliorate
- heal
- make sb/sth over
- mitigate
- mollify
- more
- palliate
- redeem
- relieve
- salve
- spice sth up
- sting
- straighten
- straighten sb out
- streamline
- sugar-coated
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