There's no such thing as not being creative

Don't think you're the creative type? Think again.

Apr 28, 2024

What comes to mind when you think of a creative? Paintbrushes and overalls? Berets and boulevards? MacBooks, shackets and biodynamic wine?

Whether they’re the butt of niche meme accounts, elusive figures on the fringes of society, or outrageous sellouts, creatives are often stereotyped. We like to put them into boxes and push them far away enough that we can mock, revere or fear them from afar.

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But here’s the thing: these so-called “Creatives” aren’t as different from the rest of us as we like to think. Because secretly, we are all creatives.

A brief and unscientific history of creativity

Since the beginning of time, humans have had ideas.

We’ve painted caves, told stories, cooked food, and built cities. We’ve mused about the moon and scratched our heads over the stars. Conjectured all sorts of outlandish theories to explain our puzzling existence on this big, spinning rock. Indoctrinated each other into even more puzzling theories to reassure ourselves that there is a point to living on this big, spinning rock.

Some of our ideas are pretty big and important, like whoever it was that discovered fire. Some of our ideas are pretty good, but less important, like Gogglebox. But whether it’s imagining fake scenarios with the barista we have a crush on, constructing elaborate excuses for why we haven’t done the laundry, or making babies, we literally never stop creating.

And yet, if I had a pound for every time a friend, family member or coaching client has told me they’re “not creative”, I’d be…well, able to afford a very nice bottle of biodynamic wine.

Why can’t we see ourselves as creative?

If you’re one of those people who could crowdfund my expensive wine habit, I get it. Although I’ve always been a bit arty, I’ve done a lot of hand-wringing over my creative identity.

Growing up in a musical, crafty family, making stuff was the norm throughout my childhood. I threw myself headfirst into self-expression and, much like Picasso, I had artistic periods. These included:

Writing the first page of many “novels”
Making a vast array of (really quite scary-looking) dolls out of socks
A repertoire of fancy dress outfits I would don to go and visit patient family members, where I would stay in character under guises like “the house inspector” (this included an intense but short-lived obsession with wigs)
And most alarmingly, an equally short-lived “band” with my best friend called—wait for it—The Sweet Pussies (our dreams were shattered when our mothers, failing to suppress their giggles, explained the significance)

The House Inspector (to be fair, a look)

Now I’ve bared my soul to the internet, I really hope everyone else was also this weird as a child.

But back to my creative trajectory. This inventive spark continued into my adolescence, where I did well in art and even entertained notions of going to art college. But somewhere down the line, something shifted. I was always “academic”, and during my A-levels, the “proper” subjects took precedence. I dropped art after AS and went on to study other people’s writing, rather than my own. Then came a career in marketing and I sold my creative soul to capitalism (I’m only half kidding, as we’ll soon see).

If you’ve read this newsletter for a while, you’ll know that it’s a product of my quest to rediscover—and perhaps reclaim—my self-expression. So along the way, I’ve been trying to figure out what gets in the way of creativity, and why so many of us feel uncomfortable owning that self-expression. I’ve also been testing out lots of methods to reconnect with my inner artist (still gearing up to the berets).

Since it’s a pretty big topic, I’ve decided to break it up into two instalments, this being part 1: the things that hold us back from being creative.

So where and why do so many of us veer off course? Here’s what I’ve got so far…

Things that block us from being creative

1. Adults.

It’s funny how so many of us aspire to “adulting”, but as helpful as it is to know which detergent goes in which laundry department and how much money to save for tax, it can be decidedly unhelpful when it comes to our creativity.

If you’ve ever spent any time with little kids, you’ll know that their appetite for creative play is endless. Perhaps it’s no surprise that adults, exhausted by thinking of another reason to call Pontypandy Fire Station, try to nip it in the bud. And so it begins.

We don’t wake up one day and decide we don’t want to play with our Bratz dolls any more; someone tells us that it’s babyish. The older we get, the more our parents, siblings, teachers and fellow playmates try to pull us away from creative play. We are socialised to focus on more “grownup” and productive endeavours. This is, of course, necessary—we wouldn’t want to be fighting over whose Groovy Chick has the longest hair in the office. But it means we can get very serious.

Speaking of productivity…

2. Capitalism.

Like I said, I was only half joking about the capitalism.

As we mature into adolescents and young adults, it becomes time for us to pull our head out of the clouds (or our own arses) and do something of use to society, aka the economy. We’re shipped off to funny little places with all sorts of silly rules. Starting with school, where we’re forced to co-exist with people we don’t like and do things we hate from 9-3. Then offices, where we’re forced to co-exist with people we don’t like and do things we hate from 9-5 (if you’re lucky).

Even outside of work, we struggle to get off the hamster wheel, continuing to find ways to make ourselves “useful”. There are always chores to do, fitness regimes to maintain, and restaurant reservations to secure. Yes, we are going to write that book/learn that instrument/take up pottery one day. But for now—and please make way for my personal favourite excuse—we simply don’t have the time.

3. Troublemakers.

Along the way, we might think FUCK THE SYSTEM and decide to start a glassblowing course or pick up the trombone. But we may encounter what Julia Cameron (the big thinker on creativity) calls “poisonous playmates” or even “crazymakers”.

These types of people get in the way of our creative talents and ambitions, often because they’re creatively blocked themselves. I imagine these naysayers and troublemakers falling across a spectrum. At one end, there are those who perhaps don’t mean to hurt us, but chip away at our creative confidence with judgement and criticism. Often, this may not even be directly at us—it could be that they engage us in gossiping about someone else who has taken a creative risk. Most of us are guilty of this, myself included: we often envy those who are brave enough to try, so we sneer at their efforts or find fault with their work.

At the more extreme end of the spectrum, we have what Cameron calls “crazymakers”: the downright narcissists who deliberately distract us from our creative pursuits. These are usually people with whom we’re in some kind of codependent relationship. For example, a partner who gaslights you or a friend whose drama has a habit of disrupting your schedule.

It strikes me that since Cameron’s work first appeared, the advent of social media has dramatically changed our relationships and connectedness. Perhaps we don’t have to be close to a narcissist to have a crazymaker in our lives. Because social media is full of them, and we can all be pretty narcissistic in the ways we use it. This can create a hostile environment for anyone who dares to put their work out there.

To take it one step further, perhaps social media is the crazy maker; demanding our time and attention, and distracting us from the things that are really important.

4. Perfectionism.

If, miraculously, we do so happen to make it past all of these external obstacles put in our way, we invariably do the most damage by getting in our own way.

Just as we’re putting the finishing touch on the vase or we finally make it through “Humpty Dumpty” on the trombone, our inner critic pipes up, and doubt and self-consciousness creep in. Nothing is good enough, we are rubbish, and everyone will think we are pathetic. So if we’re not the next Grayson Perry or Glenn Miller (I had to Google famous trombone players), we may as well give up.

Much like my childhood self and her obsession with disguises, perfectionism likes to dress up, often masquerading as procrastination or deflective, self-deprecating humour. It’s important to notice this. Because often, the reason we haven’t done something isn’t because we’re too “lazy”; it’s because we’re scared.

Spotting your blockers

Learning to spot and gently interrogate these blockers has been the first step in my own creative “recovery”, as Julia Cameron puts it. As always, there’s no overnight fix, and these things continue to pop up, no matter how much work I think I’ve done to overcome them.

But by no means are they insurmountable. The good news is that:

Contrary to popular belief, creativity is not a rare, elusive trait that only certain people possess. We are all creative and thanks to a nifty thing called neuroplasticity, we can actually train our brains to become more creative.
Creativity is not restricted to the more obvious arts, like writing or painting. It encompasses a whole range of talents, passions and hobbies, from cooking, to reading, to carpentry, to homemaking.
It doesn’t take anything wacky or woo woo to unlock your creativity (although I am totally here for it if it does). Those creative neurons can get fired up with some really simple activities—more on which in part 2 of this post.
You do have time. Trust me.

Further thinking

Inspired by the fabulous prompts in Julia Cameron’s book The Artist’s Way, I’m going to leave you with a question…

When you were younger, what were your favourite ways to play?

Those less inhibited, less “serious” versions of ourselves can hold a lot of clues for ways in which we might explore our creativity in adult life.

Stay tuned for the next post, where I’ll be sharing my tried and tested methods for firing up creativity (that aren’t completely impossible/frustratingly simple).

Say hi!

If anything in this post has resonated with you (or, alternatively, if you think I’m barking up totally the wrong tree), I’d love to hear from you.