Are you on the verge of giving up?

Are you calling what you are doing right now impossible, just because no one has done it before or better still achieve excellence in process.source

The true life story tells of The Four-Minute Mile. Prior to 1954, people believed that it was humanly impossible to run a mile in 4 minutes or less.

The “experts” claimed that any attempt to try to run a mile in 4 minutes or less would result in the spontaneous explosion of the heart, killing the individual immediately.

This was believed to be true at the time, even though there was no real proof of it ever happening. So professional runners would run their races with the fear of dying on the race track, at the back of their minds. They played it safe.

However, there was a young man called Roger Bannister who decided to attempt the impossible, at 25 years of age. He was willing and ready to go where no man had gone before. He challenged these so-called experts and set out to prove them wrong by attempting to run a mile in under 4 minutes.

Everyone discouraged him. Many of his friends and family members told him to listen to the experts who spelled doom for him; but he made his resolve. He and a friend set a date and prepared for the race.

You can imagine the fan fare that day. The clock watchers were there. The news reporters were there. The so-called experts were there. The record keepers were there. His friends and family were there. His supporters and those who wished to see him fail were there. Everyone was there.

At 3 minutes, 59 seconds and 4 nanoseconds, Roger Bannister became the first ever recorded man to run a mile in under 4 minutes.

His heart did not explode or give out. Instead, he set a record and became immortalised in the annals of history, with a monument erected in his honour.

That’s not the best part of the story. The best part is that after he set the record, people began to also run a mile in less than 4 minutes as well. Till date, over 1,400 athletes have run the 4-minute mile.

In fact, a new record was set for the fastest mile at 3 minutes, 43 seconds and 14 nanoseconds by Moroccan runner Hicham El Guerroj, a whole 17 seconds faster than Roger Bannister. What was deemed impossible about 66 years ago, is now commonplace today. All it took was one person to dare the impossible.

What are you calling impossible, simply because no one has done it before?

In 2018, Apple became the first American company to hit the trillion dollar mark. It was deemed impossible just 20 years ago, for a single Parent company to achieve this feat.

Barely a few months later, Amazon joined the ranks. In 2019, Microsoft joined the leagues too and just yesterday, Google’s Parent Company, Alphabet, became the fourth company to hit the trillion dollar mark. It took just one company to dare the impossible, and now others have followed suit.

What dream are you afraid of pursuing because no one has done it before?

What goal are you afraid of setting because no one in your family has ever achieved it before?

Where are you scared to venture into, because no one has gone there before?

Nelson Mandela said, “It always seems impossible until it is done”.

Will you be a spectator in life, watching other people achieve the impossible, or will you take the stage and attempt the impossible yourself?

No one remembers the spectators, they only remember the performer.

Don't quit just because no one has ever achieve excellence in the part that you have chosen though it is normal to always look for a mentor, but nothing you strive and work hard to achieve that is impossible.