Use Your Inexperience To Think More Creatively Early In Your Career

When you’re new and inexperienced in a field, it probably feels like your lack of experience is a shortcoming. While that can sometimes be true, it also puts you in a unique position that can allow you to be more creative than your old guard counterparts.

As Academy Award-winning actress Natalie Portman points out in the above Harvard Commencement speech, the more experienced you are in a field, the more you’ve got routines and existing answers filling up your head. It’s harder to play around with a medium because everything you do reminds you of something you’ve already done.

However, when you’re inexperienced, your mind is a blank slate, which means you can come up with ideas that other people might not have thought of:

Your inexperience is an asset and will allow you to think in original and unconventional ways. Accept your lack of knowledge and use it as your asset. I know a famous violinist that told me that he can’t compose because he knows too many pieces so when he starts thinking of a note, an existing piece immediately comes to mind. Just starting out, one of your greatest strengths is not knowing how things are suppose to be. You can compose freely because your mind isn’t cluttered with too many pieces and you don’t take for granted the way things are. The only way you know how to do things are your own way.

Of course, none of this is to say that experience is bad. It does mean, however, that being inexperienced isn’t a curse, and it certainly doesn’t mean you’re useless until you gain experience. As you’re getting started in a field, try to branch out and find more creative solutions to the problems you face. You may stumble on a better way or a great idea that none of your contemporaries thought of.

Natalie Portman Harvard Commencement Speech [YouTube via 99u]