“Don’t run in the corridor!” – Must have fallen on deaf ears, or no ears when Usain Bolt was at school. By the time the teacher would have got the first syllable of his name out, he would have been well out of ear shot!
There’s a lot to be said for not listening to people telling you that you can’t do something. Just imagine, “Usain Bolt, stop being so silly and telling people it’s possible to run the 100m in under 9.6secs… now get back to your crayoning.”
Ignoring received wisdom and just deciding to write your own rules so you can find out what is possible for yourself is a mindset that is essential for delivering excellence. Have think about whether you’re simply living out received wisdom over and over again, never actually getting any better than the self-fulfilling limits that are place on your world. Perhaps it’s time to start getting some selective amnesia and thinking about what you might be able to do if you didn’t have your predetermined performance ceilings in place. Go on, be like Usain!