See Past Your Beliefs

Did you know that there was a time when every person on the planet thought that the world was flat? That is you travelled to the end of the Earth, you would fall off the edge? Until Christopher Columbus proved otherwise, this was the common belief. He believed that if you did sail to 'the edge' you wouldn't fall off, but instead end up sailing back to where you started.

When Christopher Columbus declared that the world was round and not flat, no one believed what seemed like an utterly ridiculous statement because no ship had yet sailed to 'the edge' to prove his point. So why should they believe him? What proof did he have? History now records that Columbus not only broke one of the most widely held beliefs ever entertained by humans, and discovered another world in the process.

Or perhaps consider the Ancient Romans and Greeks, who tried for centuries to break the barrier of the four-minute mile. No one had ever run the mile in less than four minutes. It couldn't be done. They declared it 'humanely impossible'. The Romans even went so far as to have lions chase men to see if this would give them some extra motivation to move faster. Sadly for the human guinea pigs, this did not work or end so well.

The four minute barrier remained unbroken until Englishman named Roger Bannister decided he was going to do it. Bannister smashed the 'unbreakable' when on 6th May, 1954 when he ran the mile in 3 minutes 59.6 seconds. He was hailed as a hero and later received a knighthood. Whilst the breaking of the record was a fantastic feat, the reason I share this story with you is to tell you what happened afterwards, which is what I find even more fascinating.

After centuries of people trying to break the 'unbreakable' four-minute mile mark, as soon as one person proved it was possible, suddenly it became achievable for many. Over the next four years, more than forty people ran the mile in less than four minutes. The 'unbreakable' was not being broken quite regularly. Why? Because the belief had been changed: 'You can now run the mile in less than four minutes'. Permission granted!

As these two famous instances of belief-breaking show, what you believe you can do can severly hamper your progress at work and in your personal life - or it can help you to reach amazing goals.

In my next post, I'll explore some of the limiting beliefs we all face in our everyday lives, and what we can do to make sure they don't hold us back from pushing boundaries and being our very best.