It was absolutely rational, and planned, and arranged to give him the best possibility of success. Still remarkable for anyone to run a 4-minute mile, but "faith" was probably a lot less significant than confidence in his own preparation as well as the external preparations for the attempt.

In his previous attempt, of the "rabbits" had even allowed Bannister to "lap" them – while they jogged and rested, so that he could have a rabbit to set the pace on later laps.

I'm not sure what the rules are now, but when I ran competitively in the late 70s and early 80s, no one would have been able to set a world record (officially) in such a setting.

Although there's been a tendency to nod and wink at the use of "rabbits" in record attempts in track and field, nobody would have been able to set one the way Roger Bannister did.

I recall an attempt at the 800m record by Mike Boit back in the 70s where they had to have a certain number of runners on the track to make it a valid race, but we all knew who was going to be leading the "race" at every furlong and nobody got in Mike's way.

I want to repeat what I wrote earlier–that most self-help books are 90% about the other factors, not belief. You'd never know this by the come-on and the cover, but when you look inside most of them, they all say, "OK, once you believe, here's what you have to do to make your dream a reality–word hard, think critically, build relationships, and get the right training.

So, in reality, even the very book that are being excoriated here largely agree with Eric if you look even a little bit beyond the surface!

That's why these books often have such a great impact. They get stuck people off their duffs and then give them the highly practical logic rational path to go after their dream. If they don't get there, so what. They still got a lot farther than they would have if they had stayed on their overly self-doubting duffs. (Boy that has a nice ring to it–"overly self-doubting duffs".)

Certainly worked for me over and over again.

Bob Weisenberg
http://YogaDemystified.com

I asked her more about it. She meant that sometimes you need to believe in yourself. So I asked her what she meant. She meant that sometimes all of your friends tell you you are wrong or even crazy for believing what you believe, despite the evidence you have to believe it.

And I think she's absolutely correct. Sometimes the social factors are so strong that you will contradict your own experience. In this sense, you should believe in yourself. I happen to think that this "belief in yourself" is part of critical thinking. Peer pressure and other tactics act on your need to belong; but your rationality should prevail. In support of trusting your own reasoning, I think this story is useful. I think the story goes further than that, into wishful thinking territory.

The point is that this same idea can be used to get you to believe in someone's idea. It's easy to buy into someone's beliefs because they are dealing with something that has emotional resonance. The story of Bannister is emotional. It is triumphant. But we shouldn't neglect to apply our own intelligence to it, and attempt to understand how the story is constructed.

At the same time, if we find it inspiring, we should seek out the facts of the story so that we can apply them to our own lives.

To shed some personal light on the story:

I have been told this same story repeatedly since elementary school. It has created this pressure on me to dream outlandish dreams and to feel inadequate for not achieving them. The story implies that the bigger and more impossible the dream, the bigger the payoff. These dreams have only led to disappointment for me. Deconstructing the mythology of our culture is important to becoming aware of how we make decisions.

They argue that once the 4-minute mile was broken, it was quickly broken by others. Hence, the power of belief.

But I scoff at this rationale. For example, Mike Powell broke Bob Beamon's long jump record that stood for 23 years until Mike Powell broke it. But how come there aren't a flood of long jump record breakers?

Is it because no one believes the new record can be broken?

I think the 4-minute mile is just another form of inspiroof (proof by inspirational story).

I agree with Bob in the comments that belief does count for something. I mean if I don't think I can do something, I probably won't even attempt it.

But to say that I can do something because I believe is can is another matter. someone might believe they can fly if they drop enough acid, but that doesn't mean it's gonna happen. And I think that was the point of this post. Self-help books frame these stories as inspiroof of positive thinking. But in reality, good training is the more likely reason for the accomplishment.

But training hard doesn't really sounds so sexy as thinking positively, does it?

Carlon
http://dontstepinthepoop.com

I would like to hear of your experiences, though. Just because this myth is based on non-factual statements does not invalidate the importance of belief. The question that still needs to be explored is how that belief comes about and under what circumstances should believe it.

There's an old agage "Know your limits." Should you believe "You choose your limits." instead? I would say no.

My experience points to exploring and researching the possibility of your dream, not believing in it wholeheartedly. Sometimes you dream something very specific, but what you want is something more general. Example: you dream of racing in NASCAR but you really want to experience driving really fast. You can do that by renting a sports car for a day or two, which is within reach of most Americans. That just takes knowing yourself really well.

Thanks for the great discussion. I feel it has really helped me explore the details of my thought.

Someone who is overly emotional or approval-seeking or pushy in their approach might need to have a good dose of analytical thinking. That worked for me because I was way too analytical and needed some more emotion, drive, and empathy to be any good at business.

So I agree completely with your last paragraph. The hard part is self-knowledge to know what one needs. The best self-development methods start with this.

This comment itself is an example of how I use my biggest natural strength, very strong analytical ability, to help me understand and develop the other skills I need that aren't so natural to me, like dreaming and intuiting.

(This is irrelevant to many professions and pursuits, but it certainly common to high-achieving business people, athletes, and musicians. And high achievement is what this article is about,)

Bob Weisenberg
http://YogaDemystified.com

I don't disagree that belief plays a significant role. And obviously the authors of these myths know that he trained hard. I did not mean to suggest that they imply that belief alone is what let him succeed.

What I meant to get across was that he used critical thinking to determine what to believe. He didn't just say "I want to break the barrier, therefore I will believe I can". He studied the evidence and determined that it was not impossible. If it is not impossible, there is a possibility. He then proceeded to exploit that possibility.

The difference is crucial. It is the difference between believing something because you want it to be true and believing something because of the evidence. I think Bannister believed it because of the evidence. And that's why I put critical thinking on the list and not belief.

As to whether a significant number of other doctors believed that the 4-minute mile was dangerous, I think I address that pretty well in the essay, but I'll elaborate. Journalists need only print the doctor's opinions that support their objectives. They could call 100 doctors up until one says that it's dangerous. Of course the medical system can create people of differing opinions. That's kind of the point: Bannister could not have been alone in thinking it was possible. Newspapers simply exaggerated the popularity of the danger belief and omitted the popularity of the other.

I haven't read Bannister's autobiography, so trust this next statement as far as you trust Wikipedia. Bannister says himself that the four-minute barrier was made up by journalists:

From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger_Bannister#The_...

"The claim that a 4-minute mile was once thought to be impossible by informed observers was and is a widely propagated myth cooked up by sportswriters and debunked by Bannister himself in his memoir, The Four Minute Mile, 1955. The reason the myth took hold was that 4 minutes was a nice round number which was slightly better (1.4 seconds) than the world record for nine years—longer than it probably otherwise would have been because of the effect of World War II in interrupting athletic progress in the combatant countries. Note that the Swedish runners Gunder Hägg and Arne Andersson, in a series of head-to-head races in the period 1942–45, had already lowered the world mile record by 5 seconds to the pre-Bannister record. (See Mile run world record progression.) What is still impressive to knowledgeable track fans is that Bannister ran a 4-minute mile on very low-mileage training by modern standards."

Bannister is still a hero to me. He was mentally and physically strong. He trained hard and smart. And you can't fault that.

Certainly there are crucial times where some enthusiasm and positive thinking can be of great usefulness…but can we also be enthusiastic and positive with critical, evidence-based rationality? I think we can, and that in doing so we achieve even better results with fewer of the negative side-effects of self delusion.