419 I Keep My Eyes Straight Ahead February 2018 Friday Week 4

Fantastic Fridays-#419 February 23rd The Strong Within Daily Affirmation Podcast I Keep My Eyes Straight Ahead “The man who can drive himself further once the effort gets painful is the man who will win.” ~Roger Bannister In the mid 1900s, there was a story that began circulating in the running community. The world record for running a mile at the time was 4:01.4 seconds—a record that stood for nine years. And so a mammoth story was born that it was impossible for any human to run a mile under 4 minutes. One reason records weren’t being broken was from World War II interrupting people training or focusing on sports.   A man named Roger Bannister began his running career in 1946 at age 17, and even on a light running schedule compared to other runners, in 1948 he was considered for joining the Olympic team, which he turned down because he felt he was not qualified to compete at that level yet. And after watching the 1948 Olympics, that set his resolve to make it to Helsinki, Finland in 1952.   In the 1952 Olympics, the race he competed in was the 1500m (the equivalent of .932 miles). Roger was disappointed as he finished fourth…thus not being able to place and win an Olympic medal, but he did set a British Record in the process of that race.   After his setback in 1952 Bannister began to question whether he should continue his running career or give up, and he decided he was going to be the first man to run a mile in under four minutes. So he began training harder, as his previous training regimen was quite light to other distance runners in his field.   On May 6th 1954, Roger reached his goal as running a mile in 3:59.4 seconds.   And only 46 days later a rival of his, John Landy, surpassed the record.   On August 7, 1954 a historic race was set to take place as Bannister and Landy were set to race each other in what was deemed the “Miracle Mile” race. The reason the race garnered that name was because the only two people to run a mile in under four minutes ever we set to race against each other.   Landy was in the lead for most of the race until the last bend when Roger passed Landy and never gave up his lead. And later on both runners admitted the reason Roger took the lead was because when Landy was looking over his left shoulder to see where his followers were Roger blew right past him on his right side and never looked back.   The story of Roger Bannister comes up in a lot of self-development books or speeches about how a belief can determine what we do with our lives. A paradigm shift happens, and what was once deemed impossible is now within reach with alarming breakthroughs from many other people.   After Roger beat that impossible record, the next year four other men had run a sub four minute mile and the year after that 4 more to make it a total of 8 doing what was deemed impossible.   And I want to bring up the Miracle Mile race one last time to display a point the reason Bannister won was due to not worrying about who was behind him. Which makes me wonder how many times we have sabotaged ourselves worrying about other people’s progress by taking our focus away from our own efforts.   So question, where is your nose? Is it in someone else’s business, or is it only in your business? You will not go far by measuring yourself to what others are doing. Yes, we can always benchmark; but a good portion of the time when we look back, it’s to see how hard we should be going. Instead of living your life dictated by how hard other people are going, work to go your own pace, work to go a little further for yourself each time. Don’t judge your merit or your effort by what another person is doing.   We go to our jobs, our schools, or even our family life comparing what others are doing and then falling into place with that standard. We cripple our progress by looking for a norm, looking for what’s acceptable, when we should go all out creating our own standards. And if we settle for average, we will be left wondering why we always feel so unfulfilled.   There was a story told to me about teachers who were told that the new class coming in were students who needed to be challenged because they were smart. And if you didn’t ask more of them, or expect more of them, they would get bored and slough off in school. What the teachers didn’t know is that all of these students were below average students. And so the teachers made sure to challenge and believe in these students more than anyone had believed in them before…and you know what? All of these kids got better grades, in fact they as a whole became part of the top percentile of students in there districts. These kids were no longer failing out and doing poorly in school. In fact, they enjoyed that someone cared enough about them to ask more of them.   So are you asking enough of yourself, or are you falling in line with what’s expected? One pathway will lead you to being comfortable and being hidden by the pack of everyone else…and the other way will help bring a fulfillment you’ve never known.   What if you decided to focus less on what others were doing, and you decided to focus on what you were capable of? How different would your life be?   Today’s Personal Commitment:So, the question is begging to be asked…what are you capable of?   And if you aren’t reaching your capabillities, why?   As with Roger Bannister, breaking the old myth of what was humanly possible, was because he set his mind to making it happen, and then kept his eyes forward in his pursuits. What are the myths you’ve been holding onto for the things you desire in your life?   And what are you willing to do to make your goals and dreams a reality?   I believe two crucial questions need to be asked to become the people we want to be: How organized are we in working towards our goals And what’s our pain threshold?   Greatness comes by being deliberate in working towards something, and it also is reached by stepping out of our comfort zones. It doesn’t have to be huge leaps at one time either. Vincent Van Gogh said, “Great things are done by a series of small things brought together.”   I sent out a newsletter to my Strong Within subscribers... As I have decided to call this community the Strong Within One Percenters…so are you willing to be one percent better than you were yesterday? Are you willing to lean forward just a little more in your efforts? I hope so…And if you would like to be part of The Strong Within One Percenters go to my site www.chrisohearn.com and sign up for my newsletter. It will inform you of all the things I will be up to in the future. If you’re on a computer you will see a pop up come up when you go to the URL box. And if you are on a cell phone just click on my daily affirmations page at my site and then click the orange box that says subscribe.   Thanks for being a part of my life guys. I am excited to see how all us One Percenters are going to change the world together.   I Keep My Eyes Straight Ahead   Thanks for listening.  I'm sending great energy your way as we become Strong Within together, Personal Development Life Coach- Chris O'Hearn Contact info- email: [email protected]  phone:865-219-3247     Music by: - Zest by basematic (c) copyright 2011 Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution (3.0) license. - I Have Often Told You Stories (guitar instrumental) by Ivan Chew (c) copyright 2013 Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution (3.0) license. Location: Knoxville, Tennessee USA but available worldwide