Breaking the Beliefs of the World

In 1954, one such person broke such a mental barrier that was

set in long distance running. For hundreds of years, runners had

never been able to run one mile in less than four minutes. Many

had attempted this feat but had fallen short. As a result, it was

generally believed, and supposedly backed up as fact by the

medical community, that it was not possible for a human being

to run that fast!

Roger Bannister, a postgraduate student from Oxford
University set a goal to be the first to break this ‘impossible
record’. The fact was that he was nowhere near being the best
runner of his time. There were many other runners better than
he. But this didn’t deter Roger. Besides physical training, he
engaged in a lot of mental training. He kept visualizing himself
breaking the four-minute time barrier.


Then, on May 6, 1954, Roger Bannister stunned the world
by running the mile in three minutes and 54 seconds. That was
not the most amazing thing. What was truly amazing was that,
within a year, 37 other runners had broken his record. Within
the next three years, over 300 runners had repeated the same
feat.

But why was it that for so long, nobody had even come close
to achieving it? The minute an ‘ordinary’ runner did it, then so
many others could. This surely proves that what holds many
people back in achieving their goals and fullest potential are not
their lack of capability, but their beliefs