Checking out what the competition is doing causes self-imposed filter bubble

When I embark on a new project, I've noticed that if I spend a lot of time checking out what the competition is doing beforehand, my projects end up looking a lot like theirs. When I push forward on projects without doing much research ahead of time, those projects tend to be more creative and original -- not necessarily better, just ending up with a wider spectrum of results from awesome to awful. My results for well-researched projects tend to be middle-of-the-road.