Overcoming Mental Barriers : The Roger Bannister Story - John Assaraf

On May 6, 1954, Roger Bannister became the first man ever to run the mile in under 4 minutes. His time, 3 minutes 59.4 seconds. You may not know this, but back in the early 1950s, doctors and exercise experts and physiologists said that this was unequivocally impossible for the human body to run this fast. Yet one man with one idea cemented deeply in his head, shattered that belief and the expert's reality. In just one race in the 1940s, the mile record was pushed to four minutes and one second, where it stood for nine years. But this also means that for all of the time before that, hundreds of thousands of years since man has been on the earth walking, no man or woman has broken this elusive four minute mile barrier. Was it a mental barrier, was it an emotional barrier? Or was it really a physical barrier, as the experts suggested? Let's look at how Roger Bannister shocked the world and, and made everyone revise their beliefs like that about what is possible. Just two years earlier, at the 1952 Helsinki Olympics, Bannister set a British record in the 1500 meters. Yet that wasn't enough to win the race. He finished in fourth place. On May 2, 1953, a year before he broke the mile record, he made an attempt to, to break that four minute mile record and he failed. He ran the mile fast in 4 minutes 0.36 seconds. And here's what he said after he tried so hard and failed to break the record. He said, this race made me realize that the four minute mile was not out of reach. And he said he wasn't going to quit. He said that not achieving his goal strengthened his resolve to be the world's first four minute miler. And he kept training and focusing on this goal, that vision and the prize. Most people don't know this, but in 1946, Roger Bannister began medical school in Oxford, where he had won a scholarship. And every day during his lunch hour, he paid three pence to enter Paddington park near the hospital where he worked, just, just so he could practice some running. At that time, Bannister was not a talented runner. He had, they say, an ungainly walk and barely made the Oxford third team on track. On March 22, 1947, however, he was running as a pacer for members of the first team at Oxford in the mile race against Cambridge. And instead of stopping as a pacer, just keeping the other runners on pace like he was supposed to, he kept on running, not only completing the course, but winning by 20 yards with a time of 4 minutes and 30 seconds. Now, once he discovered that he enjoyed running, that he was good at it, he practiced and competed and got better and better until seven years later, he broke the long time record. Now here's where it gets interesting. His record lasted just 46 days. The four minute mile barrier has been broken so many times by male athletes and now it's the standard for all male professional middle distance runners. And even more impressively, there are over 4,500 people who have run the mile in under four minutes. The new record, by the way, stands at 3 minutes 43 seconds.13, which is set by Hisham El Gurouj of Morocco. And he did that in 1999, 55 years after Bannister reset the bar of possibility. So here are a few things Roger Bannister said. He said there was no logic in his mind that if you can run a mile in 4 minutes and 1 second, that you can't run it in 3 minutes and 59 seconds. He knew enough about medicine and physiology to know that it wasn't a physical barrier, but it was a psychological barrier. He said, here's my question for you. Is there something in your mind right now that seems and feels real to you about something you cannot do or achieve? Yet with careful review, you'll notice that it's just a psychological mindset issue or an emotional barrier versus a real problem? Roger Bannister went on to say, as it became clear that somebody was going to do it, he decided that he would prefer it to be him. Well, with this type of thinking, I ask you, why not dig deep and rise to your fullest potential? Why not challenge your beliefs, challenge your habits, challenge your assumptions and release the stories and excuses that are holding you back from winning your gold medal, from rising to your best performance ever? Another thing that Roger had going for him was an Australian man by the name of John Landy, who was also a middle distance runner. John Landy, by the way, was the second man to accomplish the mile in under four minutes. And it was their rivalry and their competition that caused both of them to rise to greater levels of success than if they had not had someone else to push them, to motivate them and to drive them forward? Roger said the competition and, and the goal that he had of breaking that elusive four minute mile barrier caused him to drive on. He was compelled by a combination of fear, he said, and the pride he would feel once he broke the record. He turned his fear into his fuel for success. He relentlessly practiced. And he said he visualized the achievement he was seeking in order to create a sense of certainty in his mind and in his body. Today, he is being remembered as a trailblazer who made the impossible possible. Now it's your turn to make your life into the masterpiece it is meant to be. Go forth. Have your vision, set your goals. And turn your fear into your fuel for success. And Roger Bannister, may you rest in peace. Thank you.