Creativity Gets Easier When You Break the Rules

Copyright (c) 2010 Julie Austin

In school you were taught not to break the rules and in a lot of cases that's true. Rules can keep you out of trouble, and keep you on the straight and narrow. Rules have their place in society and are there for a good reason. But when it comes to creativity, you need to break the rules to find new patterns and figure out new ways to solve problems.

Once we get out of school our thinking is pretty well set and we are used to following rules, respecting authority, and following what everyone else says is right. In other words, you have learned to blend in with the crowd and follow the herd.

When you conform you are keeping yourself from discovering new ideas for fear of looking stupid. But to truly be creative and innovative you have to get over that fear. To be truly innovative you are going to make a lot of mistakes. And that means breaking a lot of rules. The trick is to figure out how to minimize your mistakes so you won't be afraid to look stupid.

It's rare that you will ever find the answer to a problem or a great new idea in one shot. This requires some experimentation. And along the way you will probably come up with some dumb ideas. That is, if you're doing it right. If you're afraid of making mistakes and looking stupid you'll never break through with a really great idea. Don't be afraid to break the rules. Making mistakes means you're breaking out of your comfort zone and are that much closer to solving a problem or creating something completely new and unique. If you do the same thing you've always done before you will just get more of the same. Don't think about what is holding you back. Just ask what might happen if you actually followed through with your idea.

The more you experiment, the more you figure out what doesn't work. Be bold and take things to the extreme. How can you know what will happen if you don't try. Don't throw away the bad ideas because they might be valuable some day. Also, bad ideas can be reworked to become brilliant ones.

Just because something is a rule today, doesn't mean it couldn't change in the future. Inventors with wacky ideas now might be looked at as a success in the future. It's just that their time had not come yet. Don't be afraid to be ahead of your time.