When you’re faced with a seemingly impossible task or deadline at work, the trick to success is to adopt a positive attitude – you might be surprised at what you’re capable of achieving, says Simon Hartley
“This is impossible!” 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: “Whether you think you can, or you think you can’t – you’re right”.
The word that causes us the issue is “impossible”. It’s an interesting term, isn’t 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: “can’t”. When we say “can’t” we often don’t 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, “Daddy, this maths homework is impossible.” “Oh”, I reply. “That’s good.” “Why is that good?” she asks. “Well,” I continue. “Whistling 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 you’ll be able to do it”. And, of course, she did.
When we say impossible, we might mean it’s very difficult, or “I don’t know how to do that”, or “I don’t believe I can”. It’s similar when we say the word can’t. Normally, can’t actually means “I don’t want to”, or “I’m not willing to do what it takes”. 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, you’d probably have received some funny looks if you had walked into your great-grandparents’ 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 haven’t done it yet.
So what would happen if we changed the conversation between our ears? Instead of saying, “There’s no way…”, what if we asked ourselves, “How could we…?”. What would happen if we changed the way we looked at the challenge? I’ve 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, “Gulp, that’s a huge mountain.” However, if you look at the footpath in front of you, you may think, “That seems easy enough”, or at least reason it’s 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 – eventually you will get there. As Winston Churchill once said, “Continuous effort, not strength or intelligence, is the key to unlocking your potential”. So, what are you waiting for – 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, £9.99)
