Americans praise the self-reliant with an impossible image. It is “pulling yourself up by your bootstraps.”
The phrase began as a joke about the impossible. It appears in an 1834 newspaper. In 1860 a writer compared the mind analyzing itself to a man lifting himself by his own bootstraps.
The joke faded. By 1922 the phrase meant improving yourself by your own efforts. Today it is said without irony as a plan for success.