Our assumptions have a dramatic affect on how we approach business and personal decisions. On October 14, 1947, Chuck Yeager broke the sound barrier in level flight in the Bell X-1. We simply didn’t have a firm understanding of the dynamics of hypersonic flight. Here is another assumption: Engineers assumed that, due to shock waves and high-speed buffeting, an aircraft couldn’t exceed the speed of sound without being torn apart. On May 6, 1954, he broke through the barrier and the rest is history. Roger Bannister assumed that the sub-four-minute mile was within reach. It was assumed (past experience fueling that assumption and creating bias in some and belief in others) that a human could not run a mile in less than four minutes. The track-and-field goal of a 4-minute mile was elusive to many great athletes. Let’s look at a few examples of assumptions that were entrenched then shattered. In the two previous posts, we looked at our limiting beliefs (what we say when we talk to ourselves) and how we make judgments (form opinions). We don’t typically hold assumptions as strongly as we hold beliefs, but the longer we hold assumptions without being disproved, the more likely they are to turn into beliefs. It comes from a deeply entrenched belief system that we develop throughout our life. We assume that if “A” happens then “B” will occur it has to because it has happened in the past. Life experience and past knowledge of an outcome lead us to make assumptions. Don’t ever quit.When do assumptions turn into limiting beliefs?Īn assumption is something that we take for granted–a foregone conclusion, if you will. If you believe in yourself, well, then, there’s nothing you can’t accomplish. Bannister believed in himself… and changed the world. Until Bannister came along, we all believed in the experts. What matters, the only thing that matters, is if you say it. Who says you’re not tougher, smarter, better, harder-working, more able than your competition? It doesn’t matter if they say you can’t do it. You can accomplish your goals… if you set them. You know it is not that blow that did it but all that had gone before. On the hundred-and-first blow, the rock will split in two. Think about the stonecutter: He hammers at his rock a hundred times without denting it. Human bone structure didn’t suddenly improve. What happened? There were no great breakthroughs in training. In other words, the runner who finished dead last would have been regarded as having accomplished the impossible a few decades ago. And miracle of miracles, the year after Roger Bannister broke the four-minute mile, thirty-seven other runners broke the four-minute mile, and the year after that three hundred runners broke the four-minute mileĪ few years ago, in New York, I stood at the finish line of the Fifth Avenue Mile and watched thirteen out of thirteen runners break the four-minute mile in a single race. Then one man, one single human being, proved that the doctors, the trainers, the athletes, and the millions and millions before him who tried and failed, were all wrong. It was physiologically impossible for a human being to run a mile in four minutes. And for thousands of years everyone believed it. They also tried tiger’s milk-not the stuff you get down at the health-food store, but the real thing. In fact, folklore has it that the Greeks had lions chase the runners, thinking that would make them run faster. Remember the four-minute mile? People had been trying to achieve it since the days of the ancient Greeks. Believe in Yourself, Even When No One Else Does
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