Richard Bach, author of Jonathan Livingston Seagull, once said:

Argue for your limitations and sure enough they are yours.

On one level this clearly makes intuitive sense to me because I’ve seen many instances as a teacher and coach where people literally did not believe that “We are all better than we know” (Kurt Hahn’s words, the Outward Bound co-founder.)

And then proceeded to perform according to their beliefs.

Well, this stuff can come back to bite you on the ass. Read on and see what you think.

I finally did it! After a couple of failed attempts last year, I took another two cracks just before Xmas at breaking 7 minutes for running the mile circuit in my local park. (My daughter was both timekeeper and tyrant cheerleader!)

Attempt #1: 7 minutes and 5 seconds (1st lap too slow)

Attempt #2: 6 minutes and 59 seconds.

Wowee! Was I pleased or what. Even though this time the 1st lap was run too fast and I was really hurting on lap 4, I’d broken my PB (personal best).

So, it came as something of a shock when I re-read this blog post from Friday, 27 December 2007.

Note these words in particular:

So, 6 minutes and 59 seconds would be enough.

Yep, 100% right on target 🙂

And I didn’t read those posts again until just a few days ago, as part of my yearly goals review.

Are words slowing YOU down?