Napoleon Hill tells us, "The only limitation is that which one sets up in one's own mind." This is a very encouraging, yet a very challenging statement.
When we look at people who are successful, however, we see that one thing they have in common is that they do not accept limits to what they can achieve. Very often they break the mold and do what others tell them is impossible.
Every year on April 15, all Major League Baseball players wear the number 42 in honour of Jackie Robinson's first game with the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1947. For the first time, an African American played for a National League team.
What does this have to do with not accepting limitations?
Robinson and the owner of the Dodgers, Branch Rickey, refused to accept that Major League Baseball was only for white players. It was a limitation that existed in the minds of many people, but it was also a limitation they refused to accept. On July 5 of the same year, Larry Doby, the pride of Paterson, N.J., (my dad's hometown), became the first African American to play in the American League, and soon racial segregation in baseball become a thing of the past.
For many years most people believed that a human being could not run a mile in less than four minutes. Roger Bannister broke this barrier in 1954, and we realized that the limitation existed only in our minds. Only 46 days later, the barrier was also broken by John Landy. Several months later, both men broke the four minute barrier at the Commonwealth Games in Vancouver, in what is known as "The Miracle Mile." By 1964, the barrier was broken by a high school student, and today the world record stands at 3:43.13.
Life is full of stories of people accomplishing the "impossible." I am moved and inspired every time a person tells me their story of achieving greatness. Students succeed every day in programs that were thought to be too difficult for them. People continually move beyond physical "handicaps." Engineers design and build structures that were thought to be impossible. Artists rise from obscurity to the top of their fields and earn critical acclaim. Every time we hear one of these stories the truth is reiterated that limitations exist only in our minds.
At the same time, we have to do a great deal more than just conceive ideas of greatness. It takes hard work and persistent effort to overcome challenges. Robinson and Doby played baseball for years as amateurs and in the Negro League. Branch Rickey heard over and over how he couldn't allow an African American on his team, and all pioneers in breaking the "colour barrier" in baseball had to deal with racial slurs and threats of violence.
Though sports writers and critics claimed that the four-minute barrier could not be broken, forward-thinking track and field athletes and coaches knew that it was only a matter of time before it would be done, and they trained with that in mind.
We all face challenges in life. Those who achieve greatness do not see these limitations as barriers, they see them for what they are: ideas which exist in the minds of many people. Only an individual can determine whether a circumstance in life is a challenge or a limitation.
All stories of greatness prove that if we pursue our dreams with belief, hard work and persistence, we too can live lives of inspiration.
