Legos come with instructions and kids ignore them within a week. That’s where the good builds come from.

Instructions are a way in, not a ceiling. A set gets built once exactly as printed, which teaches how the pieces connect and what holds weight, and after that the booklet has done its job. The interesting builds start when the parts get used for something the box never pictured. Rules first, then play, is the usual order of anything creative.

Learn the standard way of whatever you are doing well enough to do it without looking. Then deliberately break one rule and see what happens. If it collapses, you have learned why the rule is there, which is also worth having.