"A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds" - Ralph Waldo Emerson
For "foolish consistency" you could very easily read "dull routine."
Routine - doing things by habit, subconsciously, without thinking - is most certainly the enemy of success.
For example, after six years of posting to this blog, I have only ever once considered that it was a routine; a duty; a chore. Not bad after almost 1500 posts?
You see the human mind is a computer - you program your computer by the input you feed into it; learning, knowledge, experience and so on.
If you program your mind with images of failure, you will fail. Conversely, if you build a bank of success images, your computer will direct you to success.
How do you build and input images of success into your computer? By creativity...by thinking.
The fruit of thinking is knowledge; and knowledge is the medium from which skills are built.
In skills learning, there are four steps:
Step One:
The Unconscious Incompetent. They don't know that they don't know. The salesperson that is making mistakes, but is completely oblivious of them. This doesn't just apply to salespeople of course, but sales leaders and even so called sales "gurus" who have become totally wrapped up in their own self-importance!
Step Two:
The Conscious Incompetent. They know that they don't know. This is the beginning of wisdom. The salesperson that is aware they are not cashing in on their full potential and wants to learn how to improve.
Step Three:
The Conscious Competent. They have learned and are aware of what they have learned - and they use it. They know why. The salesperson who knows how to make a successful approach call and can program and execute their proposal and business case to achieve their objectives.
Step Four:
The Unconscious Competent. They have learned so well that they use their knowledge with a semi-automatic skill. Their skills have reached a level where they are no longer self-centered. They are free to devote their efforts to the needs of others. The professional salesperson who does the right things to get results, but functions without conscious attention to what they are doing or why.
Note that I say semi-automatic. Even the Unconscious Competent should have the ability and the sharpness to call forth self-awareness.
Purposeful self-awareness, plus a knowing application of skill, generates maximum personal horsepower.
The handmaiden of creativity is imagination and imagination is the well that brings forth the new ideas that are essential to our growing success.