Correcting Errors

I have always been a huge baseball fan. I played it, I watch it, and enjoy seeing young people learn the game. I recently became the head coach of my school's baseball team of 12-14 year old boys (and one girl).

This is the first time I have ever coached a team. I have two excellent assistants, and the kids are great. As a result, I am enjoying it immensely. We have a very good team. In our first game we played the defending champions. Going into the last inning the game was tied. We had a chance to win, except our team fell apart in the last inning, giving up 6 runs, mainly due to errors.

One of our players was responsible for several of the errors. He was very upset about it, and began crying as he took responsibility for the loss. After talking to our team, I talked to him individually. I explained to him that I was not at all upset with him because the errors were honest, physical errors, not mental ones. His head was in the game, and he was playing it right. He just made some honest mistakes, and I told him I had full confidence he could correct them. Fortunately, he felt much better after the discussion.

At the next practice, I discussed a 4 step process to help him out. The steps are:

1. Figure out the error/mistake - I made him aware of the mistakes he made that caused some of the errors.

2. Learn from the mistakes - Ask how the mistakes can be avoided in the future.

3. Know the right way - I showed him the correct way to do things like positioning, catching the ball, etc.

4. Practice/Repetition - We practiced several times, and continue to do so on a regular basis.

I thought about how this can apply to all areas of our lives. We all make errors. Some of us make more than our fair share. When we do, we have two choices: One is to keep making the same mistakes, while the other is to learn from them. I believe these four steps can help us correct our mistakes: determine what you are doing wrong; learn how to avoid the same mistake again; know the correct course of action; practice and make the right way the regular way.

Errors can be great ways to learn if we see them that way and refuse to let them get us down. That's how errors become home runs!

Have an excellent day : )