A few years into my corporate career, something shifted.
The work that had once felt interesting started to feel like going through motions. I wasn’t burned out, exactly. I was just… dulled. The days felt long in the wrong way. I was capable and competent, but somewhere along the way, the spark had quietly gone out.
I didn’t quit. I didn’t make any dramatic moves. Instead, I did something that seemed completely unrelated to the problem.
I started buying books on photography.
The Camera I Didn’t Know I Needed #
It started small. A few books on composition and light. Then a tripod. Lens filters. Eventually a better camera. I started experimenting on weekends, studying what made a photograph work, practicing techniques I’d read about.
It had nothing to do with my job. That was, I think, the point.
What I noticed first was small: I started looking forward to something again. The photography gave me a place to be curious, to experiment, to make something without it needing to be useful or efficient or billable. It was purely mine.
And then something unexpected happened. The drudgery at work started to ease.
Not because anything about the job had changed. But because something in me had.
What Creativity Actually Does #
I started to see problems at work differently. What once felt like another obstacle to get through began to feel like a puzzle worth solving. Ideas came more easily. When disagreements came up with colleagues, I found myself genuinely curious about what was behind their thinking, rather than just trying to get past the friction.
I also started noticing creativity everywhere I hadn’t seen it before. In office layouts. In landscaping. In the way someone had arranged a room or designed a piece of signage. It was as if a channel had opened that I hadn’t known was closed.
Here’s what I came to understand: creativity isn’t a talent some people have and others don’t. It’s a capacity that lives in everyone, and like any capacity, it grows with use and atrophies without it. When I gave mine somewhere to go, it started showing up in places I hadn’t invited it.
Creativity breeds productivity. Not because it’s a productivity hack, but because a mind that’s alive in one area tends to be more alive everywhere.
Everyone Is Creative #
This is worth saying plainly, because most people don’t believe it about themselves.
An accountant is creative. A lawyer is creative. A programmer writing clean, elegant code is practicing creativity. So is anyone who figures out a better way to explain something complicated, or finds a new approach to a recurring problem, or designs a process that works better than the one before it.
Creativity isn’t the ability to draw. It’s the willingness to make something, solve something, see something differently. It’s a way of engaging with whatever is in front of you.
For years, I thought of myself as someone who worked in tech, not as someone creative. Then I was asked to oversee my department’s web pages. That small added responsibility opened a door I hadn’t known was there. I started learning design on my own. Eventually I went back to school for graphic design. I built websites. Created logos. Learned to draw.
None of that was in the original plan. It started with a camera and a willingness to follow curiosity somewhere it wanted to go.
Creativity isn’t the ability to draw. It’s the willingness to make something, solve something, see something differently.
Creativity as a Mindset, Not a Medium #
What changed my relationship with work wasn’t the photography itself. It was what the photography unlocked.
I started asking different questions. Not just how do I complete this task, but how could this be better? Not just what’s the fastest path through this problem, but what’s the most interesting one? Creativity, practiced consistently, changes the lens through which you see everything else.
If you’re a programmer, you’re being creative when you find the most elegant solution. If you’re a project manager, you’re being creative when you design a process that actually works for the people using it. If you’re in any role that involves thinking, communicating, or solving, you’re already doing creative work. You may just not be naming it that.
The question isn’t whether you’re creative. The question is whether you’re giving that part of yourself somewhere to go.
What Happens When You Start #
The invitation here is simple, but I don’t want to make it sound smaller than it is.
Find a creative outlet. Not to be productive. Not to build a brand or monetize a skill. Just to practice making something, learning something, exploring something for its own sake.
It might be photography. It might be woodworking, writing, cooking, drawing, gardening, playing an instrument, or learning a new design tool just to see what you can do with it. The medium matters less than the practice. What matters is that you’re engaging a part of yourself that doesn’t get enough room in the ordinary workday.
What have you always wanted to try or learn but kept putting off? What would you explore if you didn’t need a reason?
Start there. Not because it will fix everything. But because you might be surprised at what else it opens up.
If you’re trying to reconnect with what makes you come alive, the Career Freedom Framework can help you think through what kind of work and life actually fits who you are.