This happens to me often. I'm having a conversation with someone. I share with them what I do and a common response is, "Wow I wish I was creative" or "I don't have a creative bone in me".
I used to smile and laugh and let it slide until I realized I had an opportunity to shift someone's perspective. I now like to ask them what they enjoy doing for fun. Because that's the moment where people will unknowingly share what their favourite form of creativity is.
What I know after years of standing in front of a canvas is that creativity never leaves you. It does not belong to a certain kind of person, or a certain kind of brain. Every child leads with curiosity and imagination without a second thought. That does not disappear when we grow up. It just gets buried. Under exhaustion, to-do lists, the relentless pressure to be productive.
The belief that you are "not creative" is not a personality trait. It is a symptom of an inner dialogue that has been very loud.
The good news is you can change that inner dialogue.
What Actually Happened to Your Creativity
Think back to the last time you made something just because you wanted to. Not for a reason, not for anyone else. Just for the pure joy and feeling of it.
For most people, that memory lives somewhere in childhood. Finger painting, putting on a play, clothing for your dolls or stuffed animals, and elaborate stories made up on the spot. We made things constantly, and we were not attached to a certain result. We didn't even question if we were capable, we just acted on our ideas and ran with them.
Somewhere along the way, dedicating time to making things became somewhat of a luxury. Something we felt we had to earn after hard work, or had to be qualified to do professionally and creativity as a whole became a personality trait instead of a capacity we all carry.
Author Amie McNee, whose work We Need Your Art explores this exact misconception. She makes the case that the world loses something real when people silence their creative voice before it is ever heard. It's about a need for professional artists, but more so that creative expression is one of the most fundamental ways we process being alive.
We don't stop being creative, but we stop believing we are allowed to be.
The Science Is Catching Up
Dr. Rangan Chatterjee has spoken at length about what researchers are beginning to confirm: that creativity belongs in the same conversation as sleep, movement, and nutrition as a pillar of human health. In his work with Professor Daisy Fancourt, a leading researcher in arts and health at University College London, the evidence suggests that creative engagement lowers cortisol, reduces symptoms of anxiety and depression, and activates the parts of the brain associated with emotional regulation and creating meaning.
It's not about being "good" at something. It is about the act of engaging in the arts itself.
Fancourt's research shows that even a small amount of creative engagement, regularly practiced, has measurable effects on wellbeing. This has nothing to do with creating a masterpiece. Its's simply about the act of making.
Your nervous system does not care if the painting is beautiful. It cares that you were present while you made it so that you could feel the joy, pride, and peace of it.
What Rick Rubin Understands About All of This
Rick Rubin, who has spent decades working with musicians, painters, and authors at the highest level, wrote in The Creative Act that creativity is not a talent distributed unevenly at birth. It is a way of being. A practice of paying attention.
He describes the act of creating as a form of listening. Listening to what is trying to come through, not forcing an outcome. The work is not about being brilliant. It is about being open.
This is something I feel in the studio constantly. Some mornings I have no idea what the painting wants to be. But the moment the brush is in my hand, something starts to shifts (as long as I'm open to it). The body knows before the brain does. It's everything from the colour that gets chosen, the mark that gets made, and the confidence in the direction even if it's not clear.
Over the years I've learned that this is not something you can think your way into. It's something you have to show up for, be present with, and move through even when the path is unknown. The magic is in knowing and trusting that creating from that place is enough.
"I'm Just Not Creative" Is the Wrong Story
If you have said this about yourself, I want you to sit with something for a moment.
You've likely added your own spices to a recipe, picked out pillows for the couch, and maybe even rearranged the furniture until the room felt right. You've chosen a playlist for the drive, and you've noticed the light on the water or through leaves and felt something before you could identify it.
That is all creativity. Creativity is not a medium. It is a way of moving through the world with attention, care, and non attachment.
What gets called "not being creative" is almost always one of two things: a comparison to someone else's output, or a fear of making something that does not meet an invisible standard. Both are noise and neither is true.
Amie McNee's work puts it simply: the world needs you to make your thing. Not because it will be perfect but because the act of making it changes you, and that matters more than you may realize.
How to Start Again (Without Making It a Project)
The barrier to returning to creativity is almost always this: we make it too big. We think we need a dedicated studio, a specific skill, the right supplies, or a block of uninterrupted time.
None of that is true though.
What actually works is small and ordinary.
Pick up a pen and draw something you can see in front of you or let your hand doodle. Put on music and notice which song makes you want to dance. Rearrange the cushions on the couch or the art on the wall until the room feels more like you. Grow a flower in the garden, or make a new recipe. You can even spend five minutes looking at a colour that pulls you in and notice what you notice.
You are not warming up for the real thing. That is the real thing.
In the studio, I've learned that the days I don't feel like painting are often the days that surprise me the most. The resistance is not a signal to stop. It is the last layer before a new layer of growth and expansion and that's when a breakthrough happens.
You can never go wrong if you lead with what you're feeling. And sometimes you don't know what you're feeling until the brush is in your hand and it's just moving across the canvas.
It's not a talent, it's just showing up for yourself.
What Happens When You Surround Yourself With Creativity
One of the interesting things I've noticed in myself about collecting art is that the art we gravitate toward is a way of moving toward a new way of feeling or returning to something we've neglected. It's a version of ourselves that moves a little slower, that pays attention to beauty around, and that chooses a specific piece of art on the wall because it makes us feel something rather than simply filling a space.
The art that stops us and makes them linger, is often a mirror of the creative life we want to be living. Maybe it's more colour, more wonder, or more space for the things bring us joy.
Surrounding yourself with art that carries aliveness is its own form of creativity. You are curating the emotional environment of your home and making daily choices about what you want to feel when you walk past a wall.
If you're making a daily decision to choose how you want to feel, you are already winning.
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