Thought of the Day: Creativity Takes Courage

September 13, 2025

Creativity takes courage. That’s the Thought of the Day, and honestly, it’s one I’ve been wrestling with more than I’d like to admit. On the surface, it sounds like something you’d see on a motivational poster in a school hallway, right next to a picture of a climber hanging off a cliff. But the more I sit with it, the more I realize how deeply true it is.

Courage isn’t just about running into a burning building or standing up to someone bigger than you. Courage shows up in the little things, like daring to write down an idea that scares you, or hitting “publish” on a piece of writing that feels too raw, too honest, too much “you.”

Creativity is an act of exposure. It asks you to reveal something no one else could have made because no one else is you. That’s both thrilling and terrifying. Every brush stroke, every sentence, every off-key attempt at singing in the shower is you stepping into the open with your guard lowered. And the world doesn’t always reward that kind of vulnerability. Sometimes it ignores it. Sometimes it criticizes it. Sometimes it laughs at it.

But the flip side is this: without that courage, nothing new enters the world. Think about it. Every book you love, every painting that stirs something in you, every song you can’t get out of your head, someone had to be brave enough to create it, and brave enough to share it.

For me, courage in creativity shows up every day when I sit down to write these posts. There’s a quiet voice that whispers, Nobody cares what you’re writing. It’s not good enough. Why bother? And yet I keep typing. Not because the voice goes away, but because I’ve learned it never fully does. Courage isn’t silence in the face of fear, it’s choosing to keep going even with fear in the room.

My kids remind me of this lesson daily. They’ll draw wild dragons in pink crayon or make up songs about pizza without hesitation. They don’t worry about whether it’s “good.” They just create because they can. They don’t need courage yet because fear hasn’t set in. Somewhere along the way, as adults, we start protecting ourselves from embarrassment, and that protection slowly chokes out our creative spirit. Courage is how we reclaim it.

So if you’ve been holding back, if you’ve got a project you’ve been too scared to start, or a dream you’ve been too nervous to share, maybe today’s the day to push past the fear. Because courage doesn’t guarantee applause or success. It just guarantees that your creativity gets its shot at life. And sometimes, that’s enough.

For another reflection on leaning into fear and doing it anyway, check out When You Think You’re Too Old to Do Something New, Remember You Will Never Be Younger Than You Are Right Now.

🧠 Read the full blog post where I explore this Thought of the Day and the Question of the Day

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