Why You Should Believe in The Law of Averages
Whether it be your dating life or in sports, you’ll eventually succeed.
We are going to begin collating information on general concepts and theories that affect our daily lives, relationships and careers.
Knowing the existence of these concepts will help explain how certain things in life play out the way they do and will give you a better understanding of the why behind everything.
So to begin our mini series on laws and theories that apply to everyone in everyday life, we’d like to share with you “The Law of Averages” first.
If you have never heard of this before, then you are in luck.
The Law of Averages
The Collins Dictionary defines “The Law of Averages” as:
…the idea that something is sure to happen at some time, because of the number of times it generally happens or is expected to happen.
This implies that the results of your continuous effort will average out over time.
Another way you can define this, is that albeit your attempts at present aren’t producing results, if you continue long enough, you will eventually have your success.
So when I think of this, the common phrase, “it’s a numbers game,” comes to mind.
How This Applies to Your Life
The Law of Averages primarily holds true in situations where you take on an endeavor where there is a potential to be rejected by a human.
The cases in which the Law of Averages is most attributable are in the following:
1. Sales — The idea is that: the more people you call, the more likely you will land a sale or two. This happens to be the predominant reason as to why sales appears to be a volume game at first, then quality next.
2. Dating — Approaching women/men is yet another example of this idea at work. Often times when you approach someone, they will say no, yes, or will take some finessing to get the yes. Either way, if you do not give up, at some point you will find someone who is happy to spend time with you.
3. Jobs — Finding a job can be quite difficult as you face countless “no’s” and “no replies”. Similar to closing a deal in sales to finding your date, as long as you continue to apply (and perhaps change your strategy a bit), you will hit gold at some point.
There are other cases in which I believe the Law of Averages applies in our lives. In many of these cases, I believe it needs to be a situation where another human makes the decision on whether to accept something or not.
Since a person can be influenced one way or another, I think as time goes on, you will get better at what you do and your wins should even out against your losses.
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Although there are cases where the “Law of Averages, as we understand it, does not apply.
Contradictory Perspective
The Law of Averages is often conflated with The Law of Large Numbers.
On Lumin Learning, The Law of Large Numbers is defined as:
“the average of the results obtained from a large number of trials should be close to the expected value, and will tend to become closer as more trials are performed.”
Preceding this, it is also noted that,
“The law of averages is not a mathematical principle, whereas the law of large numbers is.”
As the name implies, this applies to a large number of instances/observations, where a random variable will reflect the underlying probability over a very large sample.
Not that there will be a balance achieved over a small set of observations. Like losing 4 times and expecting that you will win on the 5th try.
This would be akin to the Gambler’s Fallacy,,
It evokes the idea that an event is “due” to happen. (Lumin Learning)
The Gambler’s Fallacy is sometimes called the Law of Averages and vis versa. So we highly recommend applying the Law of Averages to events where you actually have an influence on the potential outcome, and not on something determined purely by chance.
The Law of Averages should be conceptualized as more or less a reason not to give up in your attempts to get a desired result in your dating life, sales career, or job search. You know, things that you have a degree of control over.
In Conclusion
The Law of Averages plays a part in all of our lives in some form or fashion.
We recommend you attribute this theory over activities where you may influence a situation to achieve a desired result, not over something that you have very little control over.
The simple message, keep trying and don’t give up. You will get your win at one point or another. (this does not apply to gambling)
On our next installment, we will talk to you about the Pratfall Effect.
What are your passions or hobbies? We’d love to hear your thoughts!
Here at The Top Essentials, we are all about helping you to live your best life. We hope the advice here helps you do just that. Keep reading our blogs for more ways to succeed at life.
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