# How Innovation Happens — Lesson #12: Do Something You’ve Never Done Before
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## Article Content
I've been covering the link between future trends and innovation strategies for 30+ years. I went back through my blog posts, stretching to 2002, to dig out the nuggets of innovation insight I've discovered along the way. This series revisits those stories, tests what still holds up, and turns them into practical lessons for what comes next. I've come back to this idea repeatedly in my work because the mindset behind innovation usually changes before the results do. What people notice, question, challenge, and act on determines how ready they are for what comes next. Innovation is not only an organizational capability. It is a personal habit. I took up skiing at 40. The point was never that everyone should ski. The point was that doing something genuinely new forces you back into beginner mode. You become uncomfortable. You make mistakes. You ask basic questions. You discover how quickly your brain can adapt when it has no choice. Those are exactly the muscles innovation requires. People who live entirely inside routines gradually lose their tolerance for uncertainty. Organizations do the same thing. Deliberately doing something unfamiliar keeps your capacity for adaptation alive. So what does that mean in practice? It means challenging the assumption, habit, or hesitation that is keeping you anchored to the present. Here are three places to start. Action Items: Choose one skill this year in which you are a complete beginner. Put yourself in a situation where asking basic questions is unavoidable. Afterward, write down what being a beginner taught you about your workplace. Explore the full How Innovation Happens series.

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Source: https://jimcarroll.com/2026/10/how-innovation-happens-lesson-012/