Nobody Is Right All the time

Realize that it is not required that a man be  100% right at all times. No baseball batter has ever had a 1000 average. if he is right three times out of ten he is considered good. The great Babe Ruth, who holds the record for the most home runs, also holds the record for the most strike-outs. It is in the nature of things that we progress by acting, making mistakes, and correcting course. A guided Torpedo literally arrives at its target by making a series of mistakes and continually correcting its course. You cannot correct your course if you are standing still. You cannot change of correct “nothing.” You must consider the known facts in a situation, imagine possible consequences of various courses of action, choose one that seems to offer the best solution- and bet on it. You can correct course as you go.

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Another help in overcoming uncertainty is to realize the role that self-esteem, and the protection of self-esteem, play in indecisiveness. Many people are indecisive because they fear loss of self-esteem if they are proved wrong. Use self-esteem of yourself, instead of against yourself, by convincing yourself of this truth: Big men and big personalities make mistakes and admit them. It is the little man who is afraid to admit he has been wrong.

“No man ever became great of good except through many and great mistakes,” said Gladstone. “I have learned more from my mistakes than my successes,”said Sir Humprey Davy. “We learn wisdom from failure much more than from success; we often discover what will do, by finding out what will not do; and probably he who never made a mistake never mad a discovery.”-Samuel Smiles. “Mr. Edison worked endlessly on a problem, using the method of elimination. If a person asked proved unavailing, he would say, ‘No, I am not discouraged, because every wrong attempt discarded is another stepward,’ ” _Mr. Thomas A. Edison.