Let’s start with the hard truth, shall we? You’re not uncreative because of your genes. You’re uncreative because you keep choosing not to be creative. There, I said it. Creativity is not some Hogwarts-granted birthright reserved for tortured painters, mad scientists, and guitar-playing baristas with nose rings and poetry degrees. It’s not an exclusive club. It’s not a mystical aura. It’s not even about talent. Creativity is a choice—one that most people actively avoid because it’s uncomfortable, inconvenient, and occasionally messy.
But instead of admitting that, we invent a convenient lie: “I’m just not the creative type.”
Oh, honey. That’s not humility. That’s a cop-out in skinny jeans.
The Myth of the “Creative Type”
You’ve heard it before. Maybe you’ve even said it with a shrug over a half-eaten donut: “Oh, I wish I were creative like you.” It’s usually delivered with the same tone people use when they say, “I wish I were tall.” As if creativity is something doled out by the universe in utero, like eye color or lactose intolerance.
Spoiler alert: There is no “creative type.” What there is, however, is a creative habit—and it’s built, not born.
Let’s be real. If you can lie to your boss about why you were late, invent a convincing excuse to skip a baby shower, or find new ways to procrastinate for six hours while your kitchen sink grows mold, congrats—you’re creative. You’re just using your powers for evil instead of for art.
You Don’t Lack Creativity. You Lack Courage.
Choosing to be creative is scary. You might fail. You might suck. You might discover that your short story about a haunted crockpot is not the next Stephen King blockbuster. So instead, you bury your ideas under a mountain of self-deprecation and Netflix, and call it “realism.”
But let’s get something straight: creative people don’t succeed because they’re fearless. They succeed because they decide to create in spite of the fear. They choose to make something rather than nothing. They choose to be vulnerable. They choose to risk ridicule. And more often than not, they choose to keep going after they’ve made complete asses of themselves.
You? You’re still deciding between watching The Office again or finally writing that screenplay you keep mumbling about.
The Dirty Secret of Every Creative Person You Idolize
You know all those people you think are creative geniuses? They’re not wizards. They’re not aliens. They’re not operating on some higher plane of divine inspiration. They’re just stubborn. They show up. They do the work. They write the crappy first draft, paint the terrible painting, film the awkward video, and keep going until the suck slowly turns into something halfway decent.
And here's the kicker: they made a conscious decision to practice creativity daily.
J.K. Rowling didn’t write Harry Potter because a lightning bolt of genius struck her at a train station. She had an idea, yes. But then she chose—every single day—to sit her butt in a chair and write, edit, cry, rewrite, get rejected, and keep going. That’s not magic. That’s persistence with a British accent.
Creativity Is Not Just for Artists
Let’s kill another myth while we’re at it: creativity isn’t limited to painting sunsets or composing sonatas. If you’ve ever rearranged your living room furniture, thrown together a last-minute Halloween costume, or MacGyvered dinner out of rice, ketchup, and despair—you’re creative.
Creativity is solving problems in ways that are new or different. That means the engineer who designs a more efficient bridge, the teacher who invents a way to explain algebra using TikTok trends, or the parent who turns broccoli into a “tiny dinosaur forest” is exercising just as much creativity as the poet scrawling angst on napkins at Starbucks.
Creativity is everywhere. It’s just that most people are too busy thinking it has to look like a gallery opening or a TED Talk to realize they’re already doing it.
The Choice to Create is the Choice to Be Seen
You know why people avoid creative work? Because it opens them up. It’s vulnerable. When you put something you’ve made into the world, you’re saying, “Here’s a piece of me. Please don’t throw tomatoes.” That’s terrifying. So instead, people wrap themselves in the safety blanket of “I’m just not creative,” and watch reruns until the existential dread subsides.
But the truth is, creativity is how we process being human. It’s how we make sense of joy, pain, confusion, and the weirdness of being a meat suit with feelings. Choosing to create is choosing to face that weirdness head-on and say, “Alright, let’s make something out of this mess.”
It’s not always profound. Sometimes it’s a meme. Sometimes it’s a crayon drawing of a cat that looks like a diseased potato. Sometimes it’s a tweet, a dance, or a wildly unnecessary PowerPoint presentation about why your cat is secretly your roommate. Doesn’t matter. You showed up. You chose creativity.
Your Brain Is Not Broken. It’s Just Lazy.
Let’s talk neuroscience for a hot minute. Your brain loves routines. It wants to conserve energy. It will do everything in its power to nudge you toward the known, the safe, the repetitive. Creativity, on the other hand, demands novelty. It’s like CrossFit for your neurons. And your brain, like most of us, would rather eat nachos and binge-watch true crime.
So when you say “I’m not creative,” what you really mean is “I haven’t trained my brain to tolerate the discomfort of original thinking.” That’s not a personality flaw. It’s a practice issue.
You don’t need a muse. You need a schedule. You don’t need inspiration. You need a damn deadline.
Want to Be More Creative? Stop Waiting to Feel Like It.
Motivation is cute, but it’s not reliable. If you wait until you feel creative, you’ll be waiting until the Earth is swallowed by the sun. The real artists, thinkers, and creators don’t wait for the vibe to be right. They create until the vibe shows up.
If you only write when you feel “inspired,” congratulations—you’re a hobbyist. If you write because you choose to write every day at 7 AM no matter how much you hate the world, welcome to the big leagues.
Creativity doesn’t flow from some magical place inside you. It flows from your calendar.
What Choosing Creativity Actually Looks Like
Let’s demystify this further. Choosing creativity doesn’t mean quitting your job and moving to Bali with a camera and a dream. It means:
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Keeping a notebook in your car because your brain only has ideas at red lights.
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Doodling on a napkin instead of scrolling through Instagram.
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Writing a poem about your dishwasher just to prove you can.
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Asking “what if?” more than “why bother?”
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Doing something badly, proudly, just because you can.
The choice to create is not about quality. It’s about engagement. It’s about saying, “This might suck. But I’m going to do it anyway.” That’s where the magic lives—not in perfection, but in the mess.
Excuses Masquerading as Personality Traits
Let’s take a moment to lovingly (okay, not-so-lovingly) roast the excuses people use to dodge creativity.
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“I’m not artistic.” Cool, neither is Excel, but people get real creative with it.
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“I don’t have time.” You spent three hours in a Reddit wormhole about the mating rituals of sea cucumbers. You have time.
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“I’m too old.” Tell that to Grandma Moses, who started painting at 78 and became a national treasure. You’re not out of time. You’re just out of excuses.
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“I’m not good at it.” No one is good at something they never practice. You think Beyoncé came out of the womb doing flawless choreography? No. She practiced until her sweat had rhythm.
How to Choose Creativity Today
Still with me? Good. Here’s how you can start choosing creativity today, right now, without any special tools, training, or existential crises.
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Make something ugly. Seriously. Try to make the worst thing possible. Get it out of your system.
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Write one sentence a day. Just one. Make it weird. Make it sexy. Make it smell like Doritos. Doesn’t matter.
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Give your to-do list a theme song. Sing it aloud. Bonus points if it’s in the style of opera.
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Describe your mood using only colors and vegetables.
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Have a five-minute staring contest with your reflection and then write down everything you learned. (Spoiler: it’s probably “moisturize more.”)
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Invent a holiday. Celebrate it. Make everyone else feel weird for not knowing about it.
The World Doesn’t Need Another Spectator
We live in an age where it’s easier than ever to consume and harder than ever to create. Your phone is a creativity-killing machine dressed in dopamine. Every app wants you to scroll, not make. Every algorithm rewards passivity over participation.
But here’s the thing: we need creators. We need weird ideas. We need the poems, the jokes, the doodles, the wild projects that make absolutely no sense until they do. We don’t need more perfectly curated lives—we need more people brave enough to post their awkward first attempts.
Choosing creativity means joining the messy, wonderful ranks of the doers. It means becoming someone who adds something new to the world instead of just watching it go by. It means waking up and deciding that today, you’re not just surviving—you’re making something.
Even if it’s just a haiku about your lunch.
So Stop Waiting for Permission
You don’t need a certificate. You don’t need a muse. You don’t need a traumatic backstory or an Instagram following or a Parisian loft.
You just need to decide.
Creativity isn’t a lightning bolt. It’s a light switch.
Flip it.