it means when things are getting tough you have to get back up, dust yourself off and keep trying.

quit your bitching and be a man. when it gets tough start playing hard.

When faced with a hard chore, it's a shift in attitude from "can't" to a positive "can-do" with confidence and a non-complaining spirit that becomes contageous.

Basically, another way of saying "Shut up and take it like a man" or "Quit your whining." The term is derived from the popular image of cowboys being tough, unflinching, uncomplaining, and hard-working.

Essentially another term for self-endowment of strength and moral, or to another. Essentially another term for a similar phrase like, "toughen up", or "stop your belly-aching and fight!", etc etc.

Used in the same sense as the expression "get yourself together." Often heard with an expletive.

a man's gotta do what a man's gotta do