This article discusses the power of belief.
Roger Gilbert Bannister
Until 1954, running the four-minute mile was considered impossible. Doctors have proven that 4 minutes is the limit for running a mile. Physiologists have conducted various experiments to scientifically prove the limits of human ability. It is impossible for humans to run under 4 minutes.
In turn, athletes have confirmed the scientists' conclusions with their actual actions. The record for a mile is 4 minutes and 2 seconds and four minutes and 1 second. . . Since the advent of the mile, no one has ever broken four minutes.
Roger Gilbert Bannister, an athlete and a doctor of medicine at Oxford University, said: "It is possible to run under 4 minutes, and I am going to run to show you." When he said this Nester's personal best time is 4 minutes and 12 seconds, and everyone regarded his words as a joke.
Bannister ignored the others and continued to train hard like the best athletes, 4 minutes and 10 seconds, 4 minutes and 5 seconds, 4 minutes and 2 seconds. But here he stopped. Just like other athletes, he reached his limit. He could not break 4 minutes and 2 seconds.
4 minutes and 2 seconds, he was not the best athlete in the world at that time, just one of the best athletes. But he still insisted: "In this matter, humans have no limits. We can run into 4 minutes." After that, he continued to persist, failed, and persisted for many years.
On May 6, 1954, Bannister ran 3 minutes and 59 seconds at his alma mater, causing a sensation in the entire Western world.
Front-page headlines across the Western world read "Science Challenged!" and "The Impossible Becomes Possible." For decades, since the timed mile began, no one had broken the four-minute human limit, but Bannister did it.
This is the power of belief.
The story does not end here, the next step is to witness the miracle. Just six weeks later, Australian athlete John Landy ran 3 minutes, 57 seconds and 9 seconds. The next year, 1955, 37 runners broke the four-minute mark. In 1956, more than 300 athletes broke the so-called human limit of four minutes.
What's going on? Are athletes working harder than before? Of course not. Technological development has brought new technologies, new running shoes? Of course not.
It is belief. Think about how powerful faith is.
Before May 6, 1954, they trained equally hard and tried their best in the game, but their subconscious beliefs restricted them and did not believe that humans could run under four minutes, so they could not do it. . Four minutes is not a physical human limit, but a psychological limit set by scientists and accepted by athletes.
After May 6, 1954, it turned out that 4 minutes was no longer the limit. So many outstanding athletes threw off the shackles of their hearts, so they all did it.
Beliefs are self-fulfilling prophecies. Many times, beliefs determine the good or bad of our performance; determine the good or bad of our interpersonal relationships. Faith is the number one predictor of happiness and success in life.
How do beliefs form reality?
Bannister's story sometimes brings us some confusion, and we don't understand why faith is so powerful, giving faith a sense of mystery. Next, we try to start from scientific experiments and see how beliefs form reality. (Science still has quite a lot of unknowns in this field, waiting for us to explore)
Pygmalion Effect
In 1960, Harvard University professor Robert Rosenthal walked away Went into an ordinary school and gave the students a psychological test.
Then Rosenthal told the teacher, "Your students have just taken a test based on Harvard's latest research. This test can help us identify the students who will make the most progress next semester, that is, the students with the most potential." students. But you can’t tell the students the test results, because it will cause discrimination among students and is unfair to the students. As long as you know it yourself”
But what the teacher doesn’t know is: these. The so-called "most promising students" were all drawn by Rosenthal from a hat. What the teacher doesn't know yet is this: the student is doing just a mediocre IQ test.
A year later, Rosenthal came to this school again. Compared with other students, the "most potential students" had improved significantly in English and math. Rosenthal again gave the students an IQ test. The IQ of the "most promising students" improved a lot in this year, and continued to improve in the following years of follow-up. This is most surprising, because generally speaking, IQ is something you are born with and does not change throughout your life.
The teacher's belief in the students has brought about such a big change in the "most potential students". Beliefs are self-fulfilling prophecies.
Why does this happen?
The "most promising students" are randomly selected, so is their potential fake? Of course not, their potential is proven. Rosenthal just brought the teacher's focus to these students, to the potential that they had not seen before, but that actually existed. In fact, every student, every person, has these undiscovered potentials.
These potentials are like a seed. Without light, no one to water it, and no one to nurture it, it will remain a seed and will not take root or germinate. Only if we believe it can grow, water and fertilize it, will the seeds break out of the soil.
This is the famous Pygmalion effect in psychology, that is, belief is a self-fulfilling prophecy. The name is taken from Greek mythology.
Pygmalion lived in Athens, ancient Greece, and was a sculptor. After traveling throughout the Greek Empire but unable to find the girl of his dreams, he decided to carve a sculpture of his ideal goddess. In front of the perfect statue, he was so moved that he burst into tears. Aphrodite sensed his sorrow and brought the statue to life. From then on, Pygmalion lived happily with her. This Greek myth means dreams come true.
Similar experiments have been verified many times in different places. Go into a company and tell your supervisor that these are the "highest potential employees," and these people who are randomly selected actually become the highest potential people.
The same effect occurs when the roles are reversed. In 1997, Jamison conducted an interesting study. At the beginning of a semester, she went to two classes taught by the same teacher. In the first class, she told the students that this teacher was very popular before and the students liked him very much. As a psychologist, Jamison also spoke highly of the teacher. Jamison said nothing in the second class.
At the end of the school year, Jamison came to school again. It was found that the evaluation of teachers in the first class was higher than that in the second class. Students in the first class also work harder and get better grades. Because they believe that the teacher is a very good teacher, they will be more active in discovering the teacher's potential, and the teacher will respond positively to this and perform better, forming a win-win situation.
This is Goethe's famous saying.
This is the ancient saying that our ancestors told every Chinese son and daughter.
The previous article told the story of the black teacher Mafa. Mafa believed in her students and saw the potential in every student. Even if these children were forced to drop out of school, they were destined to be in the eyes of others. To be a street gangster. Mafa's belief ultimately changed the fate of every child.
But in real life, we often fail to see the potential of each other and our own potential. Because our focus is not on finding potential, but on doubting the potential of others and ourselves.
Focus creates our reality, and beliefs are self-fulfilling prophecies.