| Alice
laughed: "There's no use trying," she said; "one
can't believe impossible things."
"I daresay you haven't had much practice," said the Queen.
"When I was younger, I always did it for half an hour a day.
Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before
breakfast." – from Alice in Wonderland.
So many
people (and companies) do the same things over and over again and
then wonder why they're getting the same results. Innovation is
the process of doing something in a better way or doing something
better. We all have the ability to think of new ideas but for various
reasons, we don't.
The main
culprit is judgemental thinking. We criticise others and ourselves.
This closes down possibilities. It stops the brain from being able
to make new connections between things in memory that form what
we call 'ideas'. We think we can't do things so never try. We're
frightened of failure, or rather frightened that people won't love
us if we fail. That's why on average people try to do something
just 1.5 times. They try it once and fail and then spend even more
time covering up what they tried to do to make it look as though
they never tried in the first place.
We pigeon-hole
ourselves as a type of person who's only capable of such-and-such.
We look down on the creative pursuits we've locked ourselves off
from as unimportant or somehow beneath us to make us feel better.
But we're just limiting ourselves.
So we need to step out. We need to think different thoughts. We
need to try different things without being stopped by a stupid fear
of failure.
Why not
start the day properly by doing six impossible things? Then have
breakfast.
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