I’m a big champion of everyday creativity and write about it often. For me, this is about weaving different forms of creativity into our days in small ways when we can that feel fulfilling. Some call this little-c creativity. This can involve the many forms of arts and crafts. And it can involve creatively cracking the nut on daily problems.
Recently, I was scanning through a journal paper about the relationship between creativity and daily emotional well-being. But I’m soooo not a statistics person. Luckily, there’s this plain-talked article summarizing the research and it includes this idea from the lead author, Sakhavat Mammadov:
“Everyday creativity looks like any activity that is new and useful without recognition needed from society. You may not be an expert painter. But if you are engaging with painting and trying to learn new skills, that’s creative.”
Yes! The two things that jumped out for me:
- Any activity that’s new and useful
- We don’t need recognition from society
Many of us have to sneak in quiet moments to reflect, think and get creative. If that’s you, I see you!
Why does this everyday creativity description resonate?
- It’s very broad, recognizing that creative activities can take many, many forms.
- We get to decide whether an activity feels new and useful. It doesn’t matter whether we feel good at it.
- While we may be doing it to benefit others as well (solving a problem together, creating a gift, etc.), we’re doing it mainly for ourselves — the idea of intrinsic versus extrinsic reward.
In this era of influencers and show and tell social media pressures, that last bullet can feel extra counterintuitive. Guess that’s why it feels so freeing to me. It reminds me of a Jim Carrey line in The Grinch Who Stole Christmas: “Solve world hunger, tell no one.”
There definitely are times when we want to share our creative adventures. We’re excited, proud, want advice, want others to benefit or it’s part of our career.
But what if . . .
- We break through on a sticky problem — and don’t feel compelled to shout it from the rooftops?
- We experiment with an art or craft technique we’ve always wanted to try — and don’t feel obligated to take a perfect picture to post online?
- We invent a new recipe that turns out pretty tasty — and don’t feel the need to immediately share it?
- And so on.
Wouldn’t we still feel like our creative cup was filled by the activity? Wouldn’t it still contribute to our emotional well-being? Hopefully so.
There’s more to the research that Dr. Mammadov and his colleagues conducted that I might circle back about. For now, this is helping broaden how I’ll think about everyday creativity in my own life.
What do you think? Are you incorporating more little-c creativity as you go about your days than you’ve realized? Do these creative acts give you a quiet level of personal satisfaction and energy? I’d love to get your thoughts in the comments or drop me a note! And you can check out other posts on my blog and Substack on this topic.