The Impossibly Possible
Achieving the unachievable
The world’s default is to tell you no. From the beginning of time, the mere existence of anything within the universe had to fight its way for survival. Our lives, the breathes we take, is through hundreds of thousands of years of evolution, of our genes not accepting the scenarios they were placed in and their progression to adapt rather than crumble under the pressures.
The world will tell you no, and you must learn to ignore this. You must learn to rebel against the “no” the world shouts in order to discover the true potential of yourself, and, in some regard, bend the world to your will.
In 1954, for the first time in human history, the four minute mile was broken. For as long as humans were racing and documenting times, no one had ever run a faster mile. And then, in 1954, Roger Bannister did it.
A remarkable feat to say the least but even more remarkable was the fact that after Bannister was able to run the four minute mile, a second runner, within roughly a month of Bannister’s feat, was also able to run a four minute mile. The following year, three more accomplished the feat and a year after that, in 1956, five more were able to notch the accomplishment.
No one was able to accomplish the feat and yet, once Bannister had, it set off a reaction of others also being able to accomplish it.
Today, this is known as the Roger Bannister Effect, and it is represented by someone doing something so outrageous, so impossible, that not only does one accomplish it, they inspire others to do the same. They prove to themselves and everyone watching that the impossible is in fact possible.
We’re all held back to a certain degree by self-doubt. Doubt that we won’t be able to accomplish our goals, to beat the record, to get our startup to flourish.
But something is only impossible until it is not.
“Not to assume it's impossible because you find it hard,” Marcus Aurelius reminded himself in Meditations, “But to recognize that if it's humanly possible, you can do it too.”
Yes, achieving a goal is hard. And yes, there is tremendous competition within the world, with many many people attempting to do the same thing, to defeat their competition, to make you feel like you shouldn’t even try.
But when we focus on others for the sole purpose of comparison, we lose sight of our own vision.
As Seth Godin put it:
“When you think someone is poaching your idea, it’s worth remembering that they probably aren’t, that you probably weren’t first, that the ideas probably don’t overlap as much as you think, and… even if it is precisely what you thought of in the first place, the spreading of an idea is a good thing.”
Focusing on others, if done correctly, should be with the end goal of understanding if something is possible, for setting benchmarks, not for diminishing our drive.
Because in the end, the competition is not you. The competition doesn’t know what you know. The competition does not have the same skills as you. Each of us is unique through and through. Yes, we may have the same background, or we may have the same ideas, but no one can execute on something the way we can. We bring to our goals our own distinct backgrounds and history. We combine our knowledge and experiences in ways that no one else can replicate.
This is where our true power lies. This is where the impossible becomes possible.
Just because someone hasn’t done something doesn’t mean it will not be done or cannot be done. It just means no one has cracked the code yet, no one has run the path for others to see and follow.
So the question we have to ask ourselves: do we have it within ourselves to pave the path? To be the Roger Bannister of our goals?
Only you can decide.
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Until next week,
D.A. DiGerolamo