Have you ever been creating along a careful plan of thinking with a certain creative project, taken an unexpected detour and immediately cursed it a mistake?

Maybe you dipped your paintbrush in the wrong colour and ended up with fuchsia pink streaks amongst your rolling green hills? Maybe you were trying to stick down some transparent paper and the glue caused it to bubble and ripple? Or maybe you didn’t plug in your guitar and effects pedal right and ended up getting all kinds of unexpected noise?

Most of the time, we view these kind of actions outside what we wanted or intended to do as mistakes. We adjust, and move on to try to recreate the effect we were going for in the first place, slightly annoyed at ourselves for being so careless.

But what if instead we see each of these “mistakes” as potential “Happy Accidents”?

A Happy Accident is when something you’re creating takes a turn you don’t expect, and the result actually gives you something far more interesting, inspiring or original than you were aiming for originally.

Happy Accidents are like a connection from you to some deeper creative source that you weren’t able to connect with through conventional means. So, somehow, you were given a temporary short circuit, a direct line to that little piece of creative genius that resides within us all.

Now of course not all “mistakes” end in Happy Accidents. But if you’re not open to the possibility and the concept, you’ll never be able to see the potential when they do pop up, like a surprise gift from a friend you didn’t even know you had.

There are a few things you can do to help yourself embrace the joy of Happy Accidents. Most of them involve becoming less of a perfectionist, and more organic and flexible in your creativity.

In fact, instead of determinedly creating with a fear that any slight deviation from your creative vision would be complete disaster, look for ways to invite a few Happy Accidents along to the party once in a while.

Be braver, more experimental, more carefree, more organic.

If you create with the precision of a robot, you art will end up like the product of a robot: identical, artificial, generic, and eventually soulless.

Remember you’re human and you’re an artist. The odd mistake can be not only a creative blessing, but a reminder to keep the fun and experimentation and the CREATIVITY in your artwork alive. So start openly embracing the joy of Happy Accidents today!