Beyond The Smalltalk: Bringing Creativity Back Into Your Life
Thoughts on how to be your peak creative self
Creativity has always been an extremely important virtue in my life. I don’t know if this is the result of having attended a Montessori Kindergarten (which I definitely plan to send my future kids to), or if this is just something I have inherited from my late father who he was an avid painter alongside his day-job of being an Orthodontist. But similarly, I have always sought creative outlets outside of my day job.
As much as I celebrated how active I was in 2024, I couldn’t shake the feeling that I had lost some of my creative energy. Yes, I write. Yes, I create visual content. Yes, I have a ton of crazy ideas all the time. But I still didn’t feel creative – especially in comparison to some of the things I used to do years ago (I have a 1TB iPhone, so the pictures of the past are always there to remind me of my “better days”).
It was in December 2024 when I was at a small pop-up market and saw someone sell a booklet with some of their film photography. I flipped through it and simply thought myself “I have so many film photographs, how come I don’t publish something like this myself?” At most it would take me a month to design and publish this kind of work. In that very moment, I knew I wanted to do these type of projects again. Most importantly though, I wanted to take action, not just think and talk, but do things.
That’s when I came up with the idea of doing 12 creative projects in 12 months. I wanted to dedicate 2025 to being my peak creative self again. I told myself that each project might not align perfectly with each month of the year, and that the projects might not all be similar in size or be considered “creative” by other people, but they should be 12 projects that I would love to do and that I would consider creative. That’s when I started writing down a list of potential ideas:
I have always wanted a perfume cabinet, could I build one?
Can I take all our family tapes and create a short film about my late father’s life?
What would it take to turn my film photos into a mini booklet?
Could I create a 5-minute documentary about the immigrant lady I met last year?
Which 30-day challenge could I take on? Drawing maybe?
How about the canvas I recently found in the trash, could I turn it into a painting?
Can I create a small fashion brand based on a fun and random domain I bought?
Maybe a physical challenge combined with documenting and sharing the it?
Could I start a podcast and commit to 25 episodes?
The list goes on, but you can tell that these ideas are all quite different. Some are smaller, some are bigger, and some might take longer than a month – but all of that doesn’t matter as long as I do them. Some might be a blip in time, and others might turn to something bigger. Some might be things I forget, while others might become stories I will tell years from now.
The beauty is that I don’t know where all of these ideas could lead to. But the key really is to prioritize being and doing creative projects. While I aspire to accomplish 12 projects, I have already told myself that anything above 10 I would consider “a success” (to be clear, doing any project is a success, but from an ambition and goal-setting perspective I wanted to have a minimum target).
If you are interested in pursuing something similar, I encourage you to consider what your version of this looks like. My “12 in 12” approach is made-up, and it might look very different for you. My encouragement is that you think of projects that you have always wanted to do and that require you to use your hands and/or imagination. I firmly believe that this is how we can spark creativity in our lives.