My mantra this year is Make Mistakes. That may seem a bit strange; after all, not many people would remind themselves daily that they should be making mistakes. But two things I’ve come across recently have made me think that this is exactly what we should be telling ourselves.
The first is the TED Radio Hour episode “The Source of Creativity” in which I learned that when musicians are being creative they suppress the pre-frontal cortex of the brain. That’s the area that’s responsible for filtering your actions and words; it’s what keeps you from saying stupid things – or making mistakes.
To sum it up in the episode they tied in a quote from Ken Robinson’s famous TED talk when he said
If you’re not prepared to be wrong you will never come up with anything original. Ken Robinson
The other is this quote from Neil Gaiman from way back in 2011 when he said:
I hope that in this year to come, you make mistakes. Because if you are making mistakes, then you are making new things, trying new things, learning, living, pushing yourself, changing yourself, changing your world. You’re doing things you’ve never done before, and more importantly, you’re doing something. Neil Gaiman
You do anything worth doing if you’re not prepared to make mistakes. And making them only proves that you’re working and creating and getting things done.
So go forth and make some mistakes this year!
Andrea Robertson 