In May 1954 Roger Banister became the first athlete to run a mile in less than 4 minutes (3 minutes 59.4 seconds), thus breaking a record that had been attempted for over 100 years. This event attracted the attention of the media worldwide. Back then, scientists and doctors said that achieving such a feat was humanly impossible, that trying could cause a person's heart to explode, bones to break, and muscles to tear in exertion…
This feat in itself is amazing, but perhaps most interesting, is what happened next…
In the span of 7 months of breaking this record, another 37 athletes also managed to break the 4-minute barrier and in the following 3 years, another 300 did so…
The key question is how did this happen? If a few months before, running a mile in less than 4 minutes was considered physically impossible, how was it that only Roger Banister managed to break this record, many others did too? Did the human body perform a sudden quantum leap that caused its capabilities to expand?
It is clear that no… that what changed were people's thoughts… and what before seemed impossible in their minds, now it was no longer… A limiting belief, a paradigm had been broken, and then the human being was able and easily accomplished what previously seemed impossible…
With this I want to show you the power of your thoughts about your life, how much they can limit you or make you capable. Your world is a reflection of what you think and believe. Your thoughts can make you feel happy or sad, optimistic or pessimistic, capable or incapable. Some thoughts may be kind, loving, and optimistic, others stressful, limiting, and pessimistic. And it is the latter that prevent us from being happy and living fully.
Many times we live based on thoughts and beliefs that we have learned from childhood, limiting thoughts, fears and paradigms that we have taken for granted, as absolute truths and that we have not questioned to verify their veracity. While we believe in them, we also live in function of them. I invite you to pay attention to your thoughts, the thoughts that surround your head and see how they lead you to live life in a kind, confident and optimistic way or to live life with fear and limitations.
For example, you were recently with a sales team who thought that being the newest company in their industry was an obstacle to achieving their sales goals. Once we identified this limiting belief, we began to question it with the following questions…
- Is that true? Is it true that being a new company is an obstacle to your sales? Initially, the answer was yes. We continued investigating and I asked them if they could know that “it was true with absolute certainty” that being new was an obstacle to their sales. They began to hesitate, they could not be totally sure of this… I asked them how they felt when they were in front of the client and they thought that being new was an obstacle. How they treated their customers when they had that thought. They explained that they felt insecure, defensive, they went with a pessimistic idea of the results, they were restless and nervous, they were not so kind to their clients because they thought they would say no and that they would not be open to their services. They imagined a series of negative results and objections before they even arrived.They were tired from the meeting… I asked them then, how would they feel, how would they be if they could not believe the thought that being new was an obstacle to their sales. They told me that more confident, safer, calmer to act, respond, and deal appropriately with the client…
Can you see the big difference between believing a thought or not?
Can you see how, when they think being new limits them, they feel pessimistic and demoralized before they even reach the client, and when they don't have that thought, they feel more confident, optimistic and confident?
And can you see how that can be reflected in a better relationship and treatment with the client and better results?
Finally, I invited them to reverse their thinking and see how the opposite of what they believed could be as true or more… That is, how being new could help them achieve their goals and be a strength rather than a weakness. …
Here are some of the examples they found of how this could be as true or more than the original thought:
- Because we are new, we try harder to win a client and provide better service… People often prefer a new and smaller company where they feel better served and feel like more important clients, to a large and well-established company, where they They become one more customer… Because they develop more professionally in order to respond to the objections that a customer may raise for their new position and pushes them to develop their sales skills to the maximum…
Initially, being a new company made them feel disadvantaged, as if they had something to hide. Questioning this limiting thought and reversing it allowed them to open their minds, feel comfortable being new, and even see it as a strength they could bring up in front of the client.
Now think
- What are those thoughts that limit you? What stops you from doing what your heart asks of you?
Answering these questions may give you clues as to what thoughts are limiting you to do what your heart desires. The first step is to recognize your limiting thoughts… And the next is to question them to free yourself from them and thus break your own records.
