Breaking the four minute mile
One of my favorite themes is the extent to which our reality is formed by what we believe.
How powerful is your perception of what you can and can't do, and what is and isn't possible? Kathy over at Creating Passionate Users reminds me of one of my favorite examples - the breaking of the four minute mile in the fifties.
Perception is a powerful tool. Believing there's a limitation can sometimes create that limitation. And for the clueless who don't know about the limitation, well, it's as if it doesn't exist. Belief matters. Not everywhere, not in everything, but more than we give credence to.
And it doesn't take any new-age/self-help foofiness to explain it. This is not about "the power of positive thinking." You probably all know the story of Roger Bannister--prior to 1954, experts believed that running a mile in less than four minutes was beyond human capability. People assumed it was an insurmountable human limitation--not possible. Some believed that even if you could, your heart would explode. But in 1954, Bannister broke the four-minute-impossible-barrier and clicked in at 3:59.4.
That was cool, but the remarkable thing is what happened immediately after that. Just over a month later someone else did it, and then before too long a ton of people were doing the "impossible" sub-four-minute mile. The real barrier was psychological.
Take a look at your career. Take a look at your life. Do you have any four minute mile beliefs?
Brought to you by Curt Rosengren, Passion Catalyst TM
Not to disagree with the idea of doing impossible things, but I believe Bannister himself said in his book that the idea of the impossible sub-4 mile was made up after the fact by sportswriters, and in all the scores of times I've seen that story I have never seen one footnote or actual quote to the effect that someone real thought it was impossible. Have you? John Landy ran a sub-4 45 days after Bannister's first and they raced a few months later and both did it again (Bannister won). But "a ton" of other ones after? I have spent part of today, May 6, 2006, the 52nd anniversary of the event, trying to track down facts and no surprise, the metaphorical tonnage of fiction dwarfs the poundage of fact on the internet, at least it seems that way so far.
Posted by: J Cope | May 06, 2006 at 06:10 PM