Progress is the law of life; Man is not man yet. These famous words from Robert Browning once again stand vindicated as Kenya’s Kipchoge breaks the Marathon record by running 42.195 km in less than two hours. It was a good 75 years ago that Roger Banister had achieved something similar by running one mile in less than four minutes. Banister also had broken a record that was held for centuries. Human feats are like that. Burning desire to break barriers that create mental blocks is what does the trick. Psychologists call it achievement motivation, poets call it fire in the belly and management gurus call it “Kaizen” or continuous improvement. But the basic grammar is the same. Intense desire to better a past achievement. Though there is a rider. This intense desire has to be backed by a double intense effort, almost to the extent of obsession. As student of psychology for more than four decades and a half, I can still swear by the observation of the classical psychologists that a normal human being expends somewhere around ten percent of his latent capabilities, the rest being lost in the tedium of routine. This ten percent is a self-imposed barrier of the mind that makes us believe that the limits are here — this far, no further. But the truth is something different as has been proved time and again. For those who still remember Kapil Dev’s fireworks against Zimbabwe in 1983 World Cricket Cup, an innings that changed the course of the event single-handedly, those 175 runs were something beyond imagination in a limited overs cricket match. But the year 2010 saw the first double century of a limited over cricket. And now, we have our own Rohit Sharma with three double centuries under his belt in one day cricket. Rohit in fact has come up to 264 indicating that there will be a triple century in a cricket one dayer sooner or later. There have also been centuries and 175 in T-20, just to suggest that a double ton in this format is also not an impossibility. Human potential is immense, only they are not harnessed in the right way. The three important parametres on which there is need to work is productivity, potential and competitiveness. As someone very aptly said: beat yourself. But why do humans not do it. For the simple reason that they direct their energies on beating others more than improving their own performance. An old story from the popular Akbar Birbal tales sums it all and is paraphrased here. Akbar was often told that his admiration for Birbal was misplaced. Once he decided to prove the detractors of Birbal wrong. He drew a straight line and asked the courtiers to shorten it without touching. None of the courtiers had any clue. Then, he asked Birbal to try. Birbal simply drew a bigger line by the side and said, “Sir, your line is now small”. This is what we need to understand. Focus on our own performance and continuously try to improve upon it. Every time we try, there will be improvement because the potential is immense and seldom do we reach the limits. However, the trick lies in sincerity and dedication. The mantra is that to be what you want to be, you need to be what you want to be. And in order to be what you want to be, believe what you want to be.
Pathak is a professor of management, writer, and an acclaimed public speaker. He can be reached at ppathak.ism@gmail.com
