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How often have you heard these phrases start a sentence; "If I had known", "Well I never expected" or "What was I thinking"? These three phrases are a clue to why we make mistakes, which like accidents, are things we did not mean to happen. I believe the most common causes are lack of information, lack of understanding or lack of thinking (or wrong thinking). These three, or a combination of them, are the root of all mistakes.

Lack of information is not having all the relevant facts about any given subject. Thereby making it almost impossible to make a reasonable assessment. We are often led by flash judgments based on what we think our eyes are seeing. However, this can be inaccurate, as optical illusions prove. We tend to believe what we read in print, but this too can be erroneous information on which to base a decision. Perhaps we have been outright lied to. Or maybe we only heard one side of the story, then jumped to a conclusion based on this.

Having all of the information, all of the time is not likely to happen. But getting all the facts we can, will cut down on the number of mistakes we do make.

"Knowing, what we know", is not always enough. We need to be able to apply what we know to our lives. I have known people who were in romantic relationships with people who had screaming faults. Their thoughts ran like this: "I love them so much it will change them." or "They will grow out of that behavior once we are married". This would come under the heading of wrong thinking, or being lied to. In this case, they were lying to themselves because, it is well known , the marriages that last are those between people who are compatible before the marriage. Marriage can be wonderful, but is not a "fix it" for incompatible persons or life long bad habits. The aforementioned thinking can cause another of those phrases, "That was a mistake!"

Since not thinking through, what we "do" know, can be a big mistake, I like to use what I call the Domino Effect. For example, if I do this, then A may cause B to cause C to happen. It may sound time consuming, but in reality, the thought process is very fast.
Say we think that driving over the speed limit will get us to work on time. What could be the consequences of driving too fast? Other than getting to work on time, maybe an accident or a speeding ticket will be the end result. In this instance, I would decide the risk was too high and that a speeding ticket would cost more than the lost time from being

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