A season’s worth of debates over a predictable AND limited topic fuels innovation and radical creativity – even if you lose debates over the specified plan, being able to clash over it is what DRIVES innovation itself – unrestrained conversations permit limitless epistemologies which bogs down on ground-breaking discussions of politics and enforces dogma.

Imagine being tasked with creating something new and having the world at your disposal. You can invent whatever you want, made from any material you choose, in any color, size or shape you’d like. Pretty amazing, right?¶ As it turns out, that kind of creative freedom can be paralyzing.¶ Though most people think that unlimited resources are what fuel innovation, the best ideas are born from creative constraints.¶ In his TedEd animation short, Brandon Rodriguez explains that “any project is restricted by many factors, such as the cost, what materials you have at your disposal, and the unbreakable laws of physics. These factors are called creative constraints, and they’re the requirements and limitations we have to address in order to accomplish a goal.” ¶ He also notes that they apply across professions and play a unique role as drivers of discovery and invention. Even supposed failures can lead to breakthroughs. When scientist Alexander Fleming mistakenly contaminated a Petri dish in the lab, it led to the discovery of the first antibiotic, penicillin. Synthetic dye, plastic, and gunpowder have similar origin stories.¶ “Constraints,” Rodriguez says, “aren’t the boundaries of creativity, but the foundation of it.”¶ Research backs up Rodriguez’s assertion. A study on creativity and constraint demonstrates that surprisingly when options are limited, people generate more, rather than less, varied solutions.¶ When faced with scarcity, research shows that people must give themselves the freedom to use resources in less conventional ways. Without restrictions, the research suggests, we’d remain stuck in our old ways of thinking. Constraints create an environment that demands that we unleash that which would otherwise remain untapped, which fuels innovation. ¶ Here’s how to embrace creative constraints:¶ View them as the creative challenges they are¶ Instead of resisting constraints and seeing them as inhibitors to your success, reframe them as creative challenges essential for innovation. ¶ Constraints shake us from the shackles of the status quo and force us to use our creativity to find new solutions. We engage our curiosity to ask questions like “what if?” and “why not?” And by shifting our perspective, we allow constraints to help us maintain focus and direction.