When youโre faced with a seemingly impossible task or deadline at work, the trick to success is to adopt a positive attitude โ you might be surprised at what youโre capable of achieving, says Simon Hartley
โThis is impossible!โ Have you ever said those three little words? Even if it were only to yourself, do you find yourself faced with a challenge and hear that phrase echoing in the back of your mind? The problem is that by describing something as impossible, we often diminish our chances of doing it. In the words of Henry Ford: โWhether you think you can, or you think you canโt โ youโre rightโ.
The word that causes us the issue is โimpossibleโ. Itโs an interesting term, isnโt it? To my mind, it is one of the most commonly misused words in the English language. When we say that something is impossible, we normally mean something different. The word impossible has a bedfellow: โcanโtโ. When we say โcanโtโ we often donโt actually mean that, but something else instead. In 1930 for instance, French entomologist August Magnan declared it was impossible for bumblebees to fly. Obviously no-one had told the bees.
Let me give you another example. Picture the scene: it is Sunday morning in the Hartley household. My eldest daughter wanders into the kitchen and says, โDaddy, this maths homework is impossible.โ โOhโ, I reply. โThatโs good.โ โWhy is that good?โ she asks. โWell,โ I continue. โWhistling was impossible, but you managed that. Clicking your fingers was impossible too. So was swimming without armbands and I definitely remember you saying that riding your bike without stabilisers was impossible. But, you can do all of those things now. So, if this maths homework is also impossible, I reckon youโll be able to do itโ. And, of course, she did.
When we say impossible, we might mean itโs very difficult, or โI donโt know how to do thatโ, or โI donโt believe I canโ. Itโs similar when we say the word canโt. Normally, canโt actually means โI donโt want toโ, or โIโm not willing to do what it takesโ. Throughout history, human beings have been accomplishing impossible feats. In the Middle Ages, when the world was considered to be flat, the prospect of circumnavigating the globe was considered to be impossible.
Imagine telling Captain James Cook, when he first landed on the beaches of Australia, that humans would one day be able to fly from London to Sydney in less than 24 hours. Knowing that it had taken him many months to make the journey, he might have told you that was an impossible achievement. Similarly, youโd probably have received some funny looks if you had walked into your great-grandparentsโ school classroom and told them that human beings would walk on the moon. These things were all previously considered impossible. The truth, of course, is that impossible is a perception, not an absolute. It simply means that we havenโt done it yet.
So what would happen if we changed the conversation between our ears? Instead of saying, โThereโs no way…โ, what if we asked ourselves, โHow could we…?โ. What would happen if we changed the way we looked at the challenge? Iโve watched many people attempting to take on difficult challenges. Often the hardest part is simply getting started. If you were standing at the foot of the mountain looking up at the peak, you might think, โGulp, thatโs a huge mountain.โ However, if you look at the footpath in front of you, you may think, โThat seems easy enoughโ, or at least reason itโs something you might attempt.
A friend of mine talks of The Law Of Persistence. This rule states that if you continually take strides in the direction you want to go, there is only one possible outcome โ eventually you will get there. As Winston Churchill once said, โContinuous effort, not strength or intelligence, is the key to unlocking your potentialโ. So, what are you waiting for โ go do the impossible.
Simon Hartley is founder of business performance consultancy Be World Class (find out more at be-world-class.com) and author of Could I do That? (Capstone, ยฃ9.99)
