Notes from a studio — make mistakes!
As part of our ongoing thought leadership here at Thursday we run a series of events (more recently online webinars) called Thursday Thoughts. It was whilst writing one of these that I stumbled across the wonderful idea of how drawing made me embrace mistakes.
We’re often taught from an early age not to make mistakes; don’t go over the lines! Rub out your workings! Failure is bad! Any of you who have young children will know just how upset they get when they feel like they can’t do something, or they’re told something is wrong. It’s heartbreaking to see my seven year old bawling her eyes out because the unicorn she is drawing doesn’t look right (that said, this drawing she did of a Uni-Kitty is amazing).
I’m here to tell you that mistakes are not only acceptable, they are essential. There is a world of research out there that shows how we learn from mistakes. If we always got everything right, how the hell would we ever really learn anything? I have made so many mistakes in my career, but there is no doubt that the decisions I make now are informed by those mistakes, they have helped me immeasurably. The thing about a big mistake is that you won’t ever want to make it again, you will instinctively know that the next time you’re in a similar situation you will do things differently.
You’ll see in the video below (filmed for the Unleash Your Creative Mind webinar) how I compare this to drawing. Years ago one of my teachers showed me that not every line you draw has to be perfect, you can make 1000 marks on a piece of paper and 900 of them may be inaccurate, but they help you find those 100 marks that create a beautiful drawing. I’m not suggesting my drawing is beautiful! It’s merely there to prove a point.
So keep making mistakes, especially now. The world needs another Alexander Fleming to accidentally discover a miracle drug that saves millions, or a Richard James to accidentally invent a toy like the Slinky whilst trying to find a way to stabilise valuables on long boat journeys.
Go and make some mistakes, it might just be the best thing you do today.
