The Pakistani Spectator

Roger Bannister was the first man on record to break the four minute mile.

You must remember that at one time it was considered a physical impossibility to run a four minute mile. Bannister proved them wrong and his name went into the record books.

Not only did he break the record, he destroyed it, permanently because many other runners have since passed that mark and they keep passing it, shaving fractions of seconds off previous records.

The wonderful thing is, Bannister left a blue print of exactly how he broke that record that had inhibited runners for years.

When I heard this principle several years ago I filed it away and over time I forgot it, until now.

I have arrived at the conclusion that people, events, ideas and principles come into our lives at just the right time for just the right purpose.

(”All things work together for good to them that love God”)

Thirty or forty years have passed since I first heard of Roger Bannister’s secret and just now the importance of this simple yet profound principle has struck me.

If you are tired of being whipped. If you are exhausted by the mediocre. If you are ready for a change from mediocrity to victory, than Prepare to change your life.

If this simple principle worked for Roger Bannister when it came to breaking the four minute mile world record it can work for you and I in the every day challenges of life.

We all have records that we would like to set but there are previous records that have stood as indomitable, daunting mountains in our path.

What do we do about them?

Back to Roger Bannister.

I bet you are wondering, ‘what did he do to finally reach his goal? What did he do to finally break that four minute mile record?’

Did he practice longer and harder? Did he run longer distances? Did he hire some fitness guru to instruct him? Did he eat lots of Wheaties? What was his secret and how is it pertinent to the every day challenges we face today?

Well, to put it quite simply, he changed his way of thinking.

All runners told themselves that they had to run a mile in less than four minutes and none of them were doing it.

Bannister simply changed those unattainable four minutes to 240 little seconds. It is a mental thing. It is much easier to approach a difficult challenge in small increments rather than large unmanageable, gagging bites

When he approached the problem in this way, in seconds and hundredths of seconds instead of minutes he flew across the finish line. Yes, He did it and he won the gold.

You might well ask, how does this principle apply to my personal challenge? Well it’s really quite simple.

Say you are your mate’s care giver, protector and provider. When you approach this challenge from the big picture viewpoint it seems almost intolerable but when you tackle it in little chunks, little bites, well, it is sort of like that old conundrum, “How do you eat an elephant?” And the answer always comes back, “One bite at a time, one little bite at a time.”

For a long time the care giver challenges didn’t really effect me all that much but my thinking became fogged and eventually all I could see was the big picture, the minutes and when I approached it from that angle I was whipped, but when I began seeing it from the perspective of seconds, even hundredths of seconds? Well, I could handle that.

Today, this day, my wife is precious. Today, this day she is happy, I can handle that. Today, this day, I have her with me, this is good. Little steps, a day at a time, yes, I can do that.

“This is a day that the Lord has made, rejoice and be happy in it.”

Last 5 posts by Charles Towne

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