Mistakes

I recently watched the semi final game between Japan and England at the Women's World Cup of soccer.  Unfortunately for team England, one of their players scored a goal into their own net and consequently lost the game.  Well I do feel bad for that player but on the other hand, I'm sure that we all have made many mistakes ourselves (though maybe not as crucial).  I can think of many mistakes that I have made over my lifetime.  The best way of dealing with our mistakes is to convince ourselves that on the next chance we get, we will make the best decision to get the right result.  Didn't do so well on a test at school?  Well lets study a bit more and do better next time.  Got your character killed while playing a video game?  Find out what killed your character and try not to make the same mistake again. We should always try to learn from our mistakes so that we won't make the same mistake again. 

Some people say that the way to minimize making mistakes is to be very passive.  I do not like this attitude especially in sports.  Too often a team will stop attacking and just play defense.  Once a team does this though, it doesn't give them a chance to finish an opponent.  This was the most evident in the game between the Seahawks and the Packers in the NFC finals game.  The Packers didn't try to score touchdowns when they had lead and eventually the Seahawks came back and beat them.  "All the shots we don't take, will never result in a goal."

I know making mistakes makes us feel bad but I know that whenever I make a mistake, the next time I won't. Just like I am sure that team England decided to play harder so that they would not lose the next game.  And so they did Saturday by beating Germany in the 3rd/4th game.  So congrats to Team England for 3rd place at the Women's World Cup.