Mistakes: Portals to Greater Things. This concept is incorporated into the world’s great religions. Navajos are profoundly spiritual and creative people. They believe nothing is perfect except for God. Navajo rug weavers deliberately incorporate an imperfection into their creation to honor their Gods. Some weavings may only have one; others have a few.
Most of us have been culturally trained to believe if we make a mistake, horrible consequences will follow. Indeed, big mistakes can have terrible safety and relationship consequences. When caring for people and our planet, it is wise to be cautious and prudent.
And the truth is all of us make numerous small mistakes every day. The problem is that we enter life expecting things to turn out the way we want them if we proceed with absolute control and perfection. Spoiler alert: Perfection stifles and stomps creativity.
According to the great cellist Yo Yo Ma, “Perfection is not very communicative.” As an amateur violinist myself, I have experienced the process of focusing on building the skill to play classical pieces but then letting myself go during the performance to play to the heartbeat of the entire orchestra and the composer’s expressive intent.
“For Ma, the tedium of the flawless performance taught him that there is often a tradeoff between perfection and expression. “If you are only worried about not making a mistake, then you will communicate nothing.” He says. “you will have missed the point of making music, which is to make people feel something. …. I will make a mistake on stage. And you know what” I welcome that first mistake. … Then, I can get on with performance and turn off that part of the mind that judges everything. I’m not thinking or worrying anymore. And it’s when I am least conscious of what I’m doing. When I’m just lost in the emotion of the music, that I’m performing at my best.” 1
Tim Harford’s book Messy: The Power of Disorder to Transform Our Lives chronicles the science and real-world examples that mistakes, mishaps, and other unexpected twists and turns actually move us toward something more extraordinary: “It seems that arbitrary shocks to a project can have a wonderful, almost magical effect. … Messy disruptions will be most powerful when combined with creative skills. … But when we are forced to start from somewhere new, the cliches can be replaced with moments of magic.” 2
When we enter into a project with preconceived expectations about process and outcome, it blocks unbidden insights (seedbops!) from bubbling up. We are driving according to a map that will take us to the destination we think we want. This is a good idea for me when I’m cooking. I’m not so good at cooking, so I better use a guidebook to get there.
But when you are attempting to create art that isn’t like everyone else’s or solve a work problem that is multi-faceted and context-specific, leaving some room for unstructured musing is crucial. Fertilizing a space for a seedbop to come through will change a course for the better.
When I make a “mistake” in my visual artwork, I don’t automatically want to fix it. I contemplate the ways it could change things. Can it be incorporated? What direction can I take now that this “mistake” exists? I think Bob Ross called them “Happy Accidents.” I call them places where God enters into my work.
How can you fertilize your mind to make way for a seedbop? “In [the company] 3M, it means playing a game, taking a nap, or going for a walk across an extensive campus to admire the deer. 3M knows that creative ideas don’t always surrender to a frontal assault. Sometimes they sneak up on us while we are paying attention to something else.”3
Making these spaces where unbidden ideas can break through might include exploring random thoughts and ideas that come up no matter how irrelevant they might seem at first. Or doing something that diverts you from the task at hand: like visiting a place in your town you’ve never been before, taking an ice cream break in a shop you’ve not been to before, engaging in physical exercise that is outside your routine, etc.—or even taking a nap. When I see my creativity run dry, once I get a good night’s sleep, I wake up brimming with seedbops.
Brian Eno, a musician and super creative, says, “The enemy of creative work is boredom… and the friend is alertness. Now I think what makes you alert is to be faced with a situation that is beyond your control so that you have to be watching it very carefully to see how it unfolds, to be able to stay on top of it. That kind of alertness is exciting.”4 And may open you up to that unbidden seedbop moment.
Can you remember when you made a mistake, and when you welcomed it, it improved the outcome? What can you do today to disrupt your routine and place yourself out of control?
1 Jonah Lehrer. Imagine: How Creativity Works. Houghton, Mifflin Harcourt, 2012. Pgs 86-89 Note: Subsequent to the publishing of this book, Mr. Lehrer was found to have fabricated quotes from Bob Dylan. In my opinion, the information he researched and used in this book still has great value and is replicated in creativity research of other authors. I do not include any Bob Dylan quotes Lehrer wrote.
2 Tim Harford. Messy: The Power of Disorder to Transform Our Lives. Riverhead Books, 2016. Pgs 9, 14
3 Ibid. pg 26
4 Ibid. pg 22
