Stocks fall. This is normal.

If this past month’s tumble for stock prices shocked you, it’s time to adjust your expectations.

This is what stocks do, regularly. They bounce up and down, sometimes violently, and that volatility is the price investors must pay in order to get the big long-term returns that stocks have historically provided.

The S&P 500 lost nearly 7 percent in three weeks after setting its record on Sept. 20. While that may have felt harrowing, it’s the 23rd time that investors have seen a drop of more than 5 percent for the S&P 500 since this bull market began nearly a decade ago. Going back to 1950, stocks tend to have three to four pullbacks of 5 percent to 10 percent each year, according to LPL Financial.

So, check your gut to see if you’d be able to hold on if the stock portion of your portfolio suddenly lost 10 percent. It will at some point. If that’s too much to handle, and you’d likely sell, put more of your money into bonds and other, steadier investments. But keep in mind you’ll likely need to either save more or live with less in the future because bonds have historically had lower long-term returns than stocks.

Most market analysts see this recent tumble for stocks as a temporary stumble, rather than the start of a prolonged downturn. Earnings are still growing rapidly, and the economy is still strong. Maybe it will last a couple months. That’s how long the S&P 500 has taken, on average, to recover from a 5 percent to 10 percent drop, going back to 1989, according to Michael O’Keeffe, chief investment officer at Stifel. But be prepared for it to last longer and fall deeper. That’s part of investing in stocks.