When we’re young, we learn that love lights everything else up. And as we grow, we uncover that, rather, all is love already.

Creativity is the same way. To be human is to create, from how we build our chosen day-to-day, to how we interpret our world at a high level. Engaging in our inherent creativity is therefore a selective process, in which we get to choose which aspects of our lives to unfurl and dive into, uninhibited; to potentially change. Growing our capacity for creativity helps us see that behind every choice, obstacle, and perceived status quo is ourselves.

Years ago, a friend made a comment that I’ve since brought with me: “I was so proud they laughed at my joke! I work really hard on my personality.” I was struck. Seeing these traits I’d always viewed as inherent—humor, magnetism, and, in general, how one shows up in the world—as a fun project, a creative endeavor, opened my mind and heart to so many more creative freedoms, both internal and external.

Opening everything in your life up to the possibility of creativity helps you see and develop more of it. Conversely, bucketing your “creative” time, as if it were separate from your every thought and action, the work you do daily for yourself and others, would be the surest way to limit it.

To foster more creativity in your daily life, ask yourself: What strikes you? What do you want to become more aware of? To possibly rearrange within you?

There could be countless ways, big and small, to shift perspectives, make things around you beautiful, forge new connections, open up, give back.

There could be countless ways, big and small, to shift perspectives, make things around you beautiful, forge new connections, open up, give back. Even asking questions like these is a creative act: meeting your world head-on and converting it, uniquely and truthfully. It may be an untamed, variable process, but maybe that’s the point. Question by question, then decision by decision, we each create everything, including our own lives.

Your answer to these questions is your unique gift to the world—and it is regardless of whether you choose to share what you create with others. Ultimately, invoking creativity helps you become the most fulfilled, lit-up version of yourself—and that is the greatest contribution that anyone could make.

Bre Arends

Bre Arends aims to be a catalyst: of deep and authentic connections, new and prismatic perspectives, and, always, drawing out beauty and light.