Creativity Hack: Show yourself stuffing it up

There is seldom ‘instant perfection’ in creative tasks. Perfection invariably comes from the messy process of trial, errors, mistakes and sudden epiphanies.

Which is why, at 100 Story Building, we encourage young writers to become comfortable with making mistakes. We do this by making them ourselves in front of them.

Often our creative facilitators deliberately make mistakes in front of the children / students, and use it as an opportunity to embrace them openly, and convert them into something great for the story.

Modelling yourself making and embracing mistakes helps show children that everyone stuffs it up sometimes. But these ‘mistakes’ can actually be opportunities for even better ideas and creative challenges.

However, to deliberately and openly trip in front of children - even if we are only modelling it - doesn’t come easy to us adults. Our creative facilitator Brendan has some tips on how to get comfortable with such modelling.

‘Sometimes I deliberately go faster than I normally do, just to prompt a mistake in front of children. Then, I might say, ‘Hmm..I was trying to draw a seal but this kind of looks a bit wonky. That’s okay! I’ll turn it into an evil blob-slug and they can be the villain in my story. I really like that, it’s way more original than a seal!’

It is important to think of mistakes as a gift, as a prompt to do something new and interesting. It is kind of tricky, but I genuinely try to think of it as something that helps the process of discovery. In that sense, mistakes are good.’

Yes, it is a hard mindset to adopt. But it is worth it.

Give it a go and share your experiences with us on social media by using the hashtag #100SBCreativeHacks.

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If you are a teacher, do view our ACARA-aligned online creative literacy workshops for Australian students.