Errors of Commission vs Errors of Omission
“Mistakes are the portals of discovery.”
Mistakes. We all make them.
Getting the answer wrong on a test. Filling out a form incorrectly. Taking down the wrong number.
Some are more serious than others but what ties them together is that they involve you doing something.
In other words, you have committed the mistake.
These types of slip-ups are known as ‘errors of commission’.
But what about the errors that come from you taking no action at all?
For example, if you don’t set aside money for a retirement plan. Or you failed to book travel insurance and ended up in hospital with serious injuries.
These mistakes or ‘errors of omission’ occur because you failed to act when you should have done.
In other words, it’s a mistake because you didn’t do something, versus it’s a mistake because you did.
We tend to focus too much on the former even though the latter often has greater consequences.
Why is this?
It’s probably something to do with our education system.
After all, a school is a place that teaches you that making mistakes is a bad thing.
It encourages you to be risk-averse by focusing on avoiding errors of commission.
Over time, you become afraid of doing something if you feel there’s a good chance you’ll get it wrong.
Whilst this might mean you ace formal education, it’s an unhelpful strategy for life.
Unlike school exams, you can never be 100 per cent prepared for anything.
This fear of making mistakes might mean you miss out on valuable opportunities.
Take starting your own business, for example.
Even if you read every book on entrepreneurship before you launch and try to internalise all the lessons, you will still make errors of judgement.
You have no control over many external factors, which means you will never have all the information you need to make a perfect decision.
As a result, many people don’t start companies even if they desire to because of their fear of failure.
But, as Elon Musk often says, people talk too much about the risk of doing something and not enough about the risk of not doing it in the first place.
In other words, they worry about errors of commission much more than they worry about errors of omission.
However, you have a zero per cent chance of success if you don’t try, but it’s easier to say you haven’t failed because you didn’t start.
Not taking action is a form of action - it’s a decision to do nothing.
And those decisions might cost you dearly in the long run.
