Creative Wellbeing

For as long as I can remember, I’ve attached most of my identity to being a designer. It’s the way I introduced myself and the thing I relied on most when I wasn’t sure what else to say. I love design — it’s given me joy and purpose throughout my life and has become the foundation for how I see the world. But I started asking myself, if I stop designing, who am I? That question didn’t come from failure, it came from burn out. From the pressure to always create something beautiful and conceptual. After pushing myself for years, I noticed my health and creativity also took a hit. You know the design looks good, but it doesn’t feel great because you also know you created it while running on empty. It got me thinking about Creative Wellbeing in general, and if we’re not taking care of ourselves, we’re also not able to show up for our clients or the people that matter most in our lives in the capacity we’d like to.

As designers, I think most of us don’t think too much about the work / life balance as it often blends into one. Its hard to switch off your brain, we’re deep thinkers and are wired to create. I think creative wellbeing isn’t a luxury, it’s actually a lifeline. If we want to stay truly connected to ourselves, our creativity and those around us, we have to stop treating it like a machine and start tending to it with rest and nourishment. We’re so much more than designers, and we’re also still creatives, even when we’re not creating. 

The four pillars of Creative Wellbeing are: Connection — with our bodies, with others, with something larger than us. Wonder — the art of being surprised, to look at something familiar and see it differently. Pause — rest, stillness and reflection. Movement — physical and emotional, creative flow. Joy — quiet and true, the kind that lives in small moments. We’re taught to prioritise output, but the best creative work doesn’t come from pressure, it comes from presence. Without nourishing the input, our work loses depth. As designers, we’re not just showing up — we’re offering something from inside of us, over and over again. And when that inner world has lost it’s essence, is tired or undernourished the cracks start to show. I love taking note of details, I think it brings depth to my designs, but when we stop noticing and listening to ourselves, we stop seeing things clearly. 

At its heart, design is about solving problems, that’s what drew me to it in the first place, the chance to make things better, to bring clarity where there was confusion, to serve a purpose. But what happens when your spark is gone, your ideas feel flat and all of the pillars start to fall. It’s tempting to approach ourselves like another design brief, something to fix or problem solve, but we’re not problems, we’re ecosystems. We already have the resources within us to find that spark again, they just might be buried beneath burnout, perfectionism, or pressure, but they’re there. The spark dims sometimes, but it’s never truly gone. Our creative ecosystem just needs to be gently reawakened and to start asking ourselves, what do I need to feel alive again? That’s where the real creativity begins — not in what we make, but in how we care for the one doing the making.