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"If you always put limits on everything you do, physical or anything else. It will spread into your work and into your life. There are no limits. There are only plateaus, and you must not stay there, you must go beyond them."
Bruce Lee
A group of frogs were traveling through the woods when two of them fell into a deep pit. All the other frogs gathered around the pit. When they saw how deep it was, they told the two frogs that they were as good as dead.
The two frogs ignored the comments and tried to jump up out of the pit with all of their might. The other frogs kept telling them to stop, that they were as good as dead. Finally, one of the frogs took heed to what the other frogs were saying and gave up. She fell down and died.
The other frog continued to jump as hard as she could. Once again, the crowd of frogs yelled at her to stop the pain and just die. She began jumping even harder and finally made it out. When she got out, the other frogs said, "Did you not hear us?" The frog explained to them that she was deaf -- she thought they were encouraging her to jump out of the hole the entire time.
For many years it was widely believed to be IMPOSSIBLE for a human to run a mile in under four minutes. In fact at the time, it was believed that the four minute mile was a physical barrier that no man could break without causing significant damage to their health. The achievement of a four minute mile seemed beyond human possibility, like climbing Mount Everest or walking on the moon. John Landy, one of the greatest runners of the day who had run the mile in four minutes and 2 seconds was quoted as saying "It's like a wall."
However in England on May 6, 1954, Roger Bannister, a medical student who didn't believe it was IMPOSSIBLE, ran a mile in 3 minutes, 59.4 seconds. Then fifty six days after Roger Bannister's breakthrough, John Landy ran the mile in 3 minutes and 57.9 seconds. What made this event so significant is that once the four minute barrier was broken by Roger Bannister, within three years, 16 other runners also cracked the four minute mile. Bannister is quoted as saying, "It didn't seem logical to me, as a physician, that if you could run a mile in four minutes, one and a bit seconds, you couldn't break four minutes. But it had become a psychological as well as a physical barrier."
So what happened to the physical barrier that prevented humans from running the four minute mile? Was there a sudden leap in human evolution? No. It was the change in thinking that made the difference. Bannister had shown that breaking the four minute mile was possible. Uniformly, the barriers we perceive are barriers only in our own minds. Previous runners had been held back by their beliefs and mindsets. Once the barrier was broken other runners saw that is was possible and then 16 runners went on to do the same.
Recently, I read story of a middle aged man who entered an ultra endurance race. He had completed many marathons, but had never attempted an ultra-endurance race. As the story goes, this novice completed the race 25 hours faster than it had ever been completed in the past. The difference was that no one told him that he was supposed to sleep during the race. All of his other competitors and all of the participants in the past had taken a break to sleep during this long grueling race, but because he didn't know this, he didn't limit himself and continued to plug on until he reached the finish line.
Each of these stories serve to illustrate that nothing is impossible. All limits that we place upon ourselves are limits only because we convince ourselves that we cannot achieve what we have dreamed. Instead if we, as Roger Bannister did, refuse to accept any perceived limitations as IMPOSSIBLE then we will be able to transcend the limits of the human mind and will be able to achieve anything that we desire or dream to accomplish. What would you do if you believed that ANYTHING was possible and you could never fail?
KAIZEN!!!!
Steven M. Erickson
� Copyright 2009-11 Steven M. Erickson, MD
All rights reserved. Ki Inspiring Thoughts.
The Center for Humane Living. |
