Milers chased the four minute mark for more than eighty years.
The ‘experts’ concluded that it couldn’t be done.
Until Roger Bannister did it in 1954.
Only 46 days later… John Landy beat Bannisters time.
Eleven months later three other milers broke the four minute mark… in the same race!
What changed? How did the undoable become so doable?
Researchers recently went looking for some hard data that would explain that sudden glut of sub-four minute miles. Changes in equipment or training methods or nutrition.
They didn’t find any.
Their final conclusion: the explanation for the racers sudden ability to break the barrier was that the perception of the possible had changed.
Human beings do not observe reality. We create it.
We interpret the goings on in the world around us through the lens of our perception. That lens is in large part formed by the environment that we live in. We are the average of the people we spend the most time with. I’m sure you’ve heard that before.
In other words, we don’t aim ourselves at our goals. We aim at them through ourselves.
Should you ask why batting averages and basketball shooting averages and tournament golf scores are all so similar. The answer you’ll get is that these numbers represent the limits of what a human can do. A position that will be “proven” by a data set that goes back to the beginning of the sport.
Exactly like the four minute mile.
And like the four minute mile, these numbers are likely the result of performers spending their lives soaking in the limitations of their culture. After a lifetime of being told that hitting .300 is great, that’s the dream you aim for.
If you Truly want to find out what you can do… you must separate yourself from the prevailing perception of possibility.
This isn’t some new age hippy dippy baloney. When top performers are debriefed they consistently describe having different perceptions than their lower performing colleagues. The mission was possible. The ball or target appeared bigger. The audience friendly. The situation, non-threatening. The four minute barrier… not a barrier.
Perception is the invisible side of human performance. The proverbial hidden mass of the iceberg. Technique is merely it’s tip.
So many dedicate the overwhelming majority of their effort to the overwhelming minority of their craft.
If you think I’m headed in the direction of sports psychology. I’m not. Sports psych is as effective as a bandaid on an arterial wound.
The human experience may be universal. But the experience of being human is not. Your reality is just that… yours.
The only person that can adjust it is you.
No one can help. Well, that’s not exactly true. There is one way that someone can honestly help. And that is to tell you what I just told you. That the only way to find out what you’re really capable of, is to sit quietly alone and sift every single belief and theory you’ve collected, for Truth.
There are no scared cows in the mind of one who is dedicated to mastery.
Good luck!