For more than one hundred years, runners tried to break the four-minute mile. It was considered the "Holy Grail" of track and field. Many said it couldn't be done. In fact, doctors wrote articles in medical journals explaining why it was physically impossible for the human body to run a mile in less than four minutes.
However, in May 1954, a British medical student named Roger Bannister ran the mile in 3:59.4. His amazing accomplishment made headlines around the world. Yet what happened afterward is even more amazing. The four-minute mile was broken again the next month...and then again...and again. It has since been broken more than 700 times, sometimes by several people in the same race.
What happened? They weren't training any differently, but for the first time they believed they could do it. The barriers to the mind had come down.
I've watched the movie Chicken Run at least a half-dozen times. Just beneath the surface of its simplistic look and story line lie a number of wonderful messages told by a bunch of “claymation” chickens trying to break out of their chicken-wire world to escape their fate at the chopping block. Their freedom leader, a feisty little hen named Ginger, comments profoundly in one scene: "The fences are all in your mind." She reminds her fellow chickens (and us), that bigger than the physical fences they're surrounded by are the mental fences that hold them captive.
It's been a good reminder for me on those occasions when I've been dealing with my own mental fences...those created by self-doubt, uncertainty, and fear. Can you relate? Where have you fenced yourself in mentally in recent days or weeks? Perhaps your mental fence is procrastination, a deadening habit that keeps you stuck. Maybe yours, like mine, is related to self-doubt, and the on-going internal noise it produces that keeps you immobilized. Perhaps yours is the belief that you don't deserve success, so you sabotage yourself to avoid having to find out how successful you could be. There are a million variations of the theme, but the result is still the same: we stay stuck like the chickens in the movie.
One of the key questions in the Best Year Yet® program is: "How do I limit myself and how can I stop?" Those limitations are never external. They always live inside us. The antidote to being trapped by our mental fences however is to create a compelling enough vision that, like Ginger and her flock of chicken friends, we're willing to resort to amazing measures to break out. The formula:
vision + consistent action = freedom!
I challenge you to take some bold, even outrageous steps to break free of your mental fences. If its procrastination, declare a "freedom day" and take action on everything you've been putting off: from cleaning your office to making phone calls or responding to emails you've avoided.
If its self-doubt, sit down and write out everything you value and why it's important. Then challenge yourself to eliminate anything that doesn't absolutely reflect your values, or add something that is a profound statement of who you are.
Freedom is just the other side of action.
Recognize that your mental fences can only keep you stuck as long as you're looking at them. They can only contain you as long as you're not taking actions consistent with your vision. Go ahead, take the action you've avoided and leap forward into a future filled with possibilities.
And remember, the fences are all in your mind!
