Self-fulfilling prophecies are painful to deal with. Knowing that the wrong thing is going to happen and there is nothing you can do to stop it fills most of us with a sense of dread. Who in their right mind wants to know a bad thing is coming and there is nothing to prevent it?
This is the case with believing that something is Impossible. Many very, very difficult things are called impossible before they are begun. Creating a billion-dollar business from scratch is Impossible; the reality is it is just very, very, very unlikely. More concrete examples may be more along the lines of “getting my boss to agree to this new idea is impossible, so why try.” This leads to a process where we give up before we even try.
But it is actually worse than that. Declaring an idea Impossible before it is even attempted means ruling out all alternatives to that idea as well. Maybe we do believe that creating a billion-dollar business is impossible, but maybe it is possible to create a million-dollar business that could have new goals later. The idea pivot is the most important part of brainstorming. The first idea may be impossible, but variation number 6 of that first idea may be not just feasible but also likely to succeed.
Labeling something Impossible is an immediate demotivator to a team. It shouts out that no time should be spent on the idea at all. But not all of us have the same odds calculators in our heads. What is impossible to one person may seem enticingly ambitious to the next. The label itself creates an outcome.
Do not let arbitrary labels decide your outcomes before you apply sound judgment and reason. While time is a finite resource, taking a little at the start can open up possibilities that may have once seemed Impossible.