How Beliefs Can Block or Unlock Your Superhuman
Breaking more than records
On 6th May 1954, Roger Bannister broke the 4-minute record for running a mile, an athletic achievement of such magnitude, it’s still used as a yardstick for human capability 70 years on.
Up until that time, the ‘4-minute mile’ had seemed impossible in the world of elite running, yet in the months following Banister’s record-breaking run, several other athletes started to clock sub-4-minute miles. Why? Well, whilst not to overlook Banister’s innovations in running technique, the biggest change was collective belief. From the moment the timekeeper announced ‘three minutes and…’, the psychological restriction that these athletes had been wrestling with, disappeared – the impossible had been shown to be, possible. To put it another way, the running world had been hypnotised by a limitation they all believed in, and once Banister’s landmark achievement broke the spell, their bodily potential was unlocked, to go ‘sub-4’.
The superhuman in all of us
In 1982, a young mother by the name Angela Cavallo in Georgia, US, lifted a 1.5 ton car off of an 11-yr old boy trapped underneath. Astonishing as this story is, its not unique, there are numerous instances of people lifting cars with their bare hands, when saving the life of another. The term given to such superhuman phenomena is ‘hysterical strength’, like an extreme fight / flight response with cortisol, adrenaline and endorphins all being pumped into the bloodstream, to sharpen the mind and fire-up the body. Aside from these chemical changes, the other thing that happens under such circumstances is the conscious mind, (the voice in your head that tells you what you can and can’t do), goes offline – because right then, the need for survival is more important. Sure enough, if we’d asked Angela the day before the incident whether she could have lifted that car, she would have said, with complete conviction, “no way” - on any conscious level, it would have seemed quite literally, impossible. As indeed it was, until that conscious blocking belief, became bypassed in the moment of need.
The impact of beliefs on performance potential
So, what does running the 4-minute mile and lifting cars like a superhero have in common? Aside from demonstrating just how incredible the human body can be, both stories highlight the power that belief has over what we can accomplish, what we tell ourselves (and others) is possible. Simply put, we can hold strong beliefs about how limited we are, and we can hold strong beliefs about how capable we are – both will hold true in the way our bodies play those beliefs out for us through the way we feel, think and behave. As the famous industrialist Henry Ford said, “Whether you think you can, or you think you can't – you're right.”
Beliefs below consciousness
But here’s the kicker, beliefs go way beyond the things we know we know, the majority of them exist subconsciously and affect us in ways we’re not even aware – often these beliefs are picked early on in life, before we had the capacity to reason with what we were being told by our e.g., parents, teachers, coaches etc. And its these deeply held beliefs that we work with in hypnotherapy, helping people to overcome their self-limiting beliefs and connecting them with new beliefs that empower their potential, not impede it.
Hypnotherapy for peak performance
If you’re interested in hypnotherapy for sports performance, or any other areas of your life where you want to be at your absolute best but feel you are being held back, feel free to contact me for an initial consultation.
