Roger Bannister, the first man to break a four–minute mile record, did so by breaking down his goal. He broke down the mile into four quarters of a full mile. He would dash off a quarter mile in 58 seconds or less and then jog the rest of the way. Bannister trained not only his body but also his mind.
He held the picture of the first four-minute mile in his mind; it was his predominant thought. He trained his mind by taking up mountain climbing. This taught him persistence and how to overcome any obstacle that gets in his way. When Bannister ran his great race on May 6, 1954, he joined four of his quarter mile goals together and ran the mile in 3 minutes 59.6 seconds.
I have come to discover that the reason why so many people don’t achieve their aim in life is that they want to do everything at the same time. They set a long term goal and fail to break it down. Do you think Bannister would’ve done the four minute mile if he didn’t break it down?
In some of my seminars, I asked my audience if they know it’s possible to get thirteen months in one year. That is getting an extra month in a year. Each time I asked this question, people will always want to take me up on it. Each time, I come out tops. It’s a simple thing. Here is how it works.
If your normal time of getting out of bed is 6:30am every morning and you decide to make it 30 minutes earlier. That means 30 minutes you can use to do whatever you want. It could be 30 minutes of reading, of writing, of exercising or 30 minutes of anything that you have been putting off. Now if you do this seven days in a week, that means 30 minutes times seven which gives us three and half hours. Then multiple it by 30 days and then by 12 months! What you will have is equivalent of one complete month.
What it means is that any of us can be able to do whatever we want to do without any excuse. Of course we all have agreed that there is no excuse for failure. This was exactly how Roger Bannister was able to break the four-minute mile. There is always a way to do whatever you want to do. All you need do is find it.
Some wait for the perfect time. There can never be a perfect time. The perfect time is now. I always put off exercising, because I was waiting for the perfect time. But the perfect time never came. In fact the perfect time came when I started doing what I thought was impossible: finding time to exercise.
I don’t know what it is you want to do. I don’t know what seems like you will never have time to do it. But I do know that if you start today to do a little of it, before you know it, the task will be completed. If you want to eat an elephant what do you do? One bite at time! It could be pretty difficult at the beginning, but consistency is the answer.
To our success!
– Uju Onyechere
