Ask any of my friends and colleagues, and they will tell you exactly how much I like to plan things. A new project? Let’s plan it! A major task? Let’s break it into smaller ones. A business trip? The agenda must be closed weeks ahead.
Ask my family, and they will gladly confirm it too. A family vacation? Let’s open that Excel and start planning the flights, where to stay, what to see, the route, where to stop and what exactly we need to pack.
Don’t get me wrong: I’m not bragging here. It’s not really a call for help either. For me, this is just a fact of life — the way I am wired. I need a plan, a fallback plan, and sometimes a rescue plan. I can deal with changes, but a good plan makes me sleep better at night.
A few years ago, my family and I packed way too many suitcases (with everything that was on our predefined packing list) and boarded a flight (which we pre-ordered nine months earlier) to Italy for our well-planned family vacation. I couldn’t plan everything, naturally. After all, there are 12 rainy days on average in June in northern Italy with a rainfall average of 85mm, followed by nine rainy days on average in July. But that’s nothing a good Plan B couldn’t handle, so I managed to keep my anxiety at a reasonable level.
The first week went pretty much according to plan until the time came to move to our second stop near Lake Lugano. As soon as we arrived, it started to rain — a fact that required me to adjust the precipitation probability for the rest of the week based on three different weather-forecast services. But that was nothing compared to what happened the next day.
We arrived in Lugano early in the morning only to find out that several major streets were blocked (which resulted in some pretty heated conversations between me and my navigation app). But there was a perfectly good reason for that. We discovered that on the exact same day, Lugano was hosting the annual Harley-Davidson European HOG (Harley Owners Group) Rally. As soon as we parked our car and started to explore the city, we realized that the real attractions weren’t anything we’d read about. The real attractions were the hundreds of bikers, the gorgeous bikes, the music, the atmosphere, the merchandise — all the things we hadn’t expected to see. These surprising encounters turned this day into a unique experience.
It wasn’t only the fact that we hadn’t known in advance about the rally that caught us by surprise. It was the extreme clash between everyone and everything that was part of the rally, and the Swiss lakeside city used as the backgdrop for the event. These two opposites created a surreal view which amplified the feeling of surprise and kept it alive throughout the day.
This became the most memorable day of our vacation, and not because it was carefully planned, but because none of us expected it.
We mostly operate in a world that demands (or at least encourages) us to plan. We set goals, define milestones, and are urged to take the fastest, safest, and most predictable route to our destination. Our brain loves patterns and predictable outcomes, but surprisingly, it fires up when encountering a surprise.
The ability to be surprised is an important part of being creative. When we are surprised, we become alert and more attentive to our surroundings. We experience more and observe more. We are filled with wonder and awe. The result is that we notice and collect more ingredients we can later use to generate creative ideas. And that’s a perfectly good reason not to leave surprise to chance.
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Whatever you do, and no matter how much you feel you ought to plan, leave some room for surprises. Yes! Make space for surprises as part of your plan. Create and embrace opportunities to be surprised. Learn to love them and even to look for them actively.
Surprises don’t have to be grand to be effective. Getting off the train in a different station, parking your car a bit further and taking a walk, or watching a movie you know nothing about — such simple experiences are invitations to surprises, and they can make every day special.
So, are you ready to let go a little and be surprised? Are you ready to surprise someone else? Try it. You’ll be surprised.