Being a creative has nothing to do with what's written in your bio. It has everything to do with how you move through the world.

Most people who are genuinely creative don't spend much time thinking about whether the word applies to them. They're too busy making, solving and seeing things differently and wondering why everyone else isn't doing the same. 

The questioning comes later.

Usually when someone asks what you do and the answer feels bigger than any job title can hold.

Being a creative isn't a profession. It's a disposition. The thing that makes you stop in the middle of a conversation because something someone said just connected to something else entirely and you need a moment to follow that thread. It's the reason you can't walk past a piece of work without noticing what's working and what isn't and it's why you find it difficult to do something badly even when nobody would notice. The standard isn't external. It was always internal.

Creatives see problems differently. Not better necessarily, but differently. Where most people see a constraint, a creative sees a starting point. Where most people see a finished thing, a creative sees a decision that could have gone another way. That's not a skill you develop. It's a way of being that was probably there long before anyone gave it a name or put it on a CV.

It also asks more of you than most people account for. Being a creative means sitting with uncertainty longer than is comfortable. It means defending a decision you can feel is right before you can fully explain why. It means caring about the work in a way that doesn't switch off at the end of the day, that follows you into the weekend, that surfaces at three in the morning when something clicks that didn't click before.

That's not a burden. It's the job. And if that sounds familiar, you already know what you are.

The creatives who doubt themselves most are often the ones taking it most seriously. The ones who never question it are usually the ones who stopped pushing a long time ago. Doubt in creative work isn't a sign of weakness. It's more a sign that the standard still means something to you.

What it really means to call yourself a creative is to accept that you'll never fully switch it off. The curiosity, the noticing, the compulsion to make something better than you found it. That doesn't live in a job description. It lives in you.

If you read that and recognised yourself, you already have your answer.

Shot of the good stuff.