Go Beyond Limits
Many of you will remember this statement made by sports physicians in the 1950s:
“It is impossible for the human body to carry enough energy and maintain the strength to run a mile in under 4 minutes”.
For many years athletes tried, but they never broke the “barrier” the experts had set up.
All that is, except one British runner, Roger Bannister who refused to listen to any beliefs except the belief in himself.
On May 6th, 1954, Roger took part in a race in Oxford. He was determined to give it the very best he could in spite of what all the “experts” had said.
As a result he broke the tape at 3 minutes 59.4 seconds then collapsed as the announcer called his time to the cheering crowd:
The “unbreakable” record had been broken! And at age 25, Roger Bannister had made world history.
But it doesn’t stop there. Within a month, the Australian runner John Landy broke Bannister’s record, coming in at 3 minutes 59.6 seconds.
However in a race called “The Mile of the Century” Bannister beat Landy at 3 minutes 58.8 seconds.
Six more people broke the world record in the year after these amazing events. More than 300 did in the following years.
The record for running a mile now stands at 3 minutes 43.13 seconds, set by Hicham El Guerrouj in 1999.
Now this is the message for you:
Bannister refused to be limited by what other athletes and the world’s experts believed: that it was impossible to run a mile in under 4 minutes.
It was a “limiting belief”.
The problem with limiting beliefs, funnily enough, is they really do limit you!
That’s why if you want to go further and do better than those around you, it’s your job to ask yourself challenging questions, push yourself harder
If your internal dialogue says “I can’t do this”, realize that those words are only a belief and you can change that belief.
Today, with the latest advances in psychology, hypnotherapy and NLP we know there are techniques and skills you can acquire to maintain goals and to overcome beliefs that in times gone by would have held you back.
I’m glad you liked it.
A very inspirational story. And it’s true!