I would say not letting your thoughts be constrained by the bias of existing approaches.
This isn't easy, at all. It requires training yourself into having a open and flexible mind in general.
Not knowing about something is more like a cheat to get there easier.
But it's supper common that innovation involves a lot of well known foundation work and just is very different in one specific aspects, and it's quite hard to know about the other foundation work but not that specific aspect especially if you don't even know which aspect can be fundamentally be "revolutionized"/"innovated".
But what always help if you learn about a new topic is to try blindly first yourself and then look at what the existing approaches do. Not just for doing ground braking work but even for e.g. just learning math.
One of the math teachers I had over the school years before university used this approach for teaching math it yielded way better independent understanding and engagement it helped me a lot later one. Sadly I only had that teacher for 2 years.
This isn't easy, at all. It requires training yourself into having a open and flexible mind in general.
Not knowing about something is more like a cheat to get there easier.
But it's supper common that innovation involves a lot of well known foundation work and just is very different in one specific aspects, and it's quite hard to know about the other foundation work but not that specific aspect especially if you don't even know which aspect can be fundamentally be "revolutionized"/"innovated".
But what always help if you learn about a new topic is to try blindly first yourself and then look at what the existing approaches do. Not just for doing ground braking work but even for e.g. just learning math.
One of the math teachers I had over the school years before university used this approach for teaching math it yielded way better independent understanding and engagement it helped me a lot later one. Sadly I only had that teacher for 2 years.