In This Article
Discover how to find your creative calling with science-backed strategies from Chase Jarvis. Learn why everyone is creative and how to build a daily practice.
This article was based on an interview I conducted with Chase Jarvis. Chase is an award-winning photographer and entrepreneur who built a career shooting campaigns for Nike, Apple, and Red Bull, and his most provocative idea has nothing to do with cameras. Everyone is creative, he says, and most people have been talked out of believing it. His bestselling book Creative Calling lays out a framework for reclaiming that creative identity and using it to design a more fulfilling life.
Watch the full interview below:
Below I walk through Jarvis’s core insights, put research behind them, and give you steps you can take this week.
What Is a Creative Calling?
A creative calling is the inner pull toward meaningful creative expression, the sense that you’re meant to make something. Chase Jarvis defines it as the intersection of your unique talents, passions, and the impact you want to have on the world. It reaches well past painting and music into entrepreneurship, problem-solving, cooking, and any other place where you bring original thinking to a task.
Plenty of people never pursue theirs. Talent is rarely the obstacle. Somewhere along the way they stopped believing they were creative at all.
Why People Stop Believing They’re Creative
Chase Jarvis blames labeling. From a young age, teachers, parents, and coaches sort children into categories: “the creative one,” “the athlete,” “the math kid.” These labels are well-intentioned, but they calcify into identity.
Jarvis lived this firsthand. In second grade, he made his first film with neighborhood friends, and he even sold candy at the premiere. But he was also a gifted athlete, and his teacher recommended his parents steer him toward sports. He followed that path for years, earned a soccer scholarship, and was drafted by the Seattle Sounders B-team. He also made the Olympic development team.1 But a devastating knee injury and a growing sense that the soccer world “didn’t really light me up” forced a reckoning.
After inheriting cameras from his grandfather, Jarvis rediscovered the creative passion that had been pushed aside for over a decade. That experience became the foundation of his philosophy: the labels we accept in childhood shape our adult identity far more than our actual abilities do.
The labels we accept in childhood shape our adult identity far more than our actual abilities do.
The Science Behind the Label Problem
Research backs him up. Psychologist Carol Dweck’s work on mindset shows that fixed labels create self-fulfilling prophecies. Tell someone they’re creative, or that they aren’t, and they tend to live up to it. People who hold a fixed mindset about creativity avoid the stretch experiences that build creative skill, and they read a struggle as proof they “don’t have it.”2
So talk about the practice instead of the person. Instead of “I’m not a creative person,” try: “I haven’t built a creative practice yet.”
Action Step: Write down three labels you received as a child (“the responsible one,” “not artistic,” “the quiet one”). For each, ask: “Is this still true, or did I just stop questioning it?” This simple exercise can loosen the grip of decades-old assumptions.
Everyone Is Creative (and the Research Proves It)
Jarvis’s central claim, “Creativity is your birthright,” sounds like motivational fluff until you look at the neuroscience.
Every brain hums with small, spontaneous bursts of activity, and that churn lets it search almost at random for solutions you never consciously looked for. Artists have no special version of it.3
The American Psychological Association’s review of creativity research puts the “right-brain” myth to bed. Creative thinking uses the whole brain, trading off between the parts that daydream and the parts that focus and judge.4
What NASA’s Creativity Test Found
In the 1960s, Dr. George Land and Dr. Beth Jarman developed a divergent thinking test for NASA to identify the most innovative engineers. Then they gave the same test to 1,600 children and followed them over a decade.5
Here is what they found:
| Age | Scored at “Genius” Level for Creative Thinking |
|---|---|
| 5 years old | 98% |
| 10 years old | 30% |
| 15 years old | 12% |
| Adults | 2% |
Land’s explanation was that schools teach children to generate ideas and judge them at the same time. He compared it to “driving a car with one foot on the accelerator and one on the brake.” Children learn to censor ideas before they’re fully formed, and over time they stop producing bold ones at all.
Land’s conclusion: “What we are really doing is teaching children to not be creative.”6
98% of five-year-olds scored at genius level for creative thinking. By adulthood, only 2% did.
If non-creative behavior is learned, it can be unlearned.
Chase Jarvis’s Definition of Creativity
Jarvis defines creativity this way: taking two or more things that didn’t previously go together and combining them in a new and useful way.
This definition is deliberately broad. Choosing rosemary instead of basil for tonight’s dinner counts, and so does restructuring a meeting agenda to defuse a team conflict.
Research supports this expansive view. The Four C Model of Creativity, developed by psychologists James Kaufman and Ronald Beghetto, sorts creativity into four levels4
- Mini-C: Personal insights and interpretations (“I just realized why that approach wasn’t working”)
- Little-C: Everyday creativity (cooking, decorating, problem-solving at work)
- Pro-C: Professional-level creative expertise
- Big-C: Legendary, field-changing innovation
Most people fixate on Big-C creativity and conclude they don’t qualify. But Mini-C and Little-C creativity happen dozens of times a day.
Action Step: For one week, keep a “Creative Choices Log.” At the end of each day, write down three decisions where you combined ideas, solved a problem in a new way, or chose something different from your default. You’ll be surprised how creative your ordinary life already is.
The IDEA Framework: 4 Steps to Find Your Creative Calling
In Creative Calling, Jarvis outlines a four-step framework called IDEA. Here’s how to apply each step:
Step 1: Imagine
Envision what you want to create without judgment or limitation. Jarvis calls this listening to your “creative calling,” the quiet inner nudge toward what matters to you.
The practical challenge is that people spend so long ignoring their intuition that they can’t hear it anymore. Jarvis suggests starting with what you were drawn to as a child, before the labels took hold.
How to do it:
- Set a timer for 10 minutes. Write freely about what you’d create if money, time, and other people’s opinions were irrelevant.
- Notice which ideas give you energy (even nervous energy) versus which feel obligatory.
- Look for patterns across multiple sessions. Your creative calling often hides in recurring themes.
Pro Tip: Jarvis calls your intuition “that soft voice we’ve been taught to ignore,” and treats it as your best creative asset. You’re listening for the nudge, not grading the answer.
Step 2: Design
Build a system that supports your creative vision. That means scheduling dedicated “studio time” (even 15 minutes counts), removing friction from your creative process, and designing your environment to support the work.
How to do it:
- Block 15-30 minutes of daily creative time on your calendar. Treat it like a meeting you can’t cancel.
- Prepare your materials the night before (open the document, set out the sketchbook, queue the playlist).
- Tell one person about your creative project. Social accountability increases follow-through.
Step 3: Execute
Take consistent action, especially when you don’t feel inspired. Jarvis puts it bluntly: “You’ve got to do the verb to become the noun.” You don’t wait to feel like a writer before you write. You write, and over time, you become a writer.
This is where most people stall. They wait for motivation, or for permission. Jarvis’s counter: “Creators create. Action is identity. You become what you do.”
How to do it:
- Use the Two-Minute Start: commit to just 2 minutes of creative work. Once you start, momentum usually carries you further.
- Separate brainstorming from editing. Generate ideas first (divergent thinking), then evaluate them later (convergent thinking). This directly addresses Land’s “accelerator and brake” problem.
- Track your streak. Research by Dr. Phillippa Lally at University College London found that a new behavior takes about 66 days on average to become automatic, and that missing a single day didn’t derail progress.7
You don’t wait to feel like a writer before you write. You write, and over time, you become a writer.
Step 4: Amplify
Share your work and find your creative community. Jarvis calls this finding your “tribe,” and research confirms it matters.
People who felt supported by the people around them came up with more ideas and believed more in their own creative ability.8
How to do it:
- Share one piece of creative work this week, even if it’s unfinished. Post a sketch, read a paragraph aloud to a friend, or share a recipe you improvised.
- Join a creative group (online or local) where the norm is encouragement rather than critique. Jarvis’s advice: “A-gamers work with A-gamers. The best way to level up your own game is to level up the team around you.”
- Ask for specific feedback instead of general approval. “What part stuck with you?” beats “Do you like it?”
Creativity Is a Habit You Build Daily
Jarvis’s most useful reframe is that creativity is a practice you build through steady repetition.
The science backs this up. More than 650 young adults kept a diary for 13 days, and the ones who spent a day cooking, writing, sketching, or playing music reported more enthusiasm and higher well-being the next day.9
The effect ran one way only. A creative Tuesday lifted Wednesday, but a cheerful Tuesday didn’t make Wednesday any more creative. So the mood is the payoff, and the practice is still on you.
The benefit wasn’t limited to people who score high on openness to experience. People who didn’t think of themselves as creative got it too.
Action Step: Run a two-week creative streak. Choose one small creative act you can do daily for the next two weeks: sketch for 5 minutes, write three sentences of fiction, cook one meal without a recipe, or rearrange something in your workspace. Set a phone reminder. After 14 days, notice how your relationship with creativity has shifted.
How Creative Agency Builds Over Time
Jarvis says embracing creativity gives you a sense of agency over your life, and Self-Determination Theory says much the same thing. It treats autonomy, the feeling of genuine control over your own actions, as one of three basic psychological needs. People who feel autonomous engage more with creative work and produce better work.10
This doesn’t happen overnight, though. You don’t cook one adventurous meal and suddenly feel in control of your entire life. Creative agency builds gradually through creative self-efficacy, your belief in your own ability to make something good.
Each small choice (trying a new recipe, solving a problem differently at work, writing a poem) strengthens that belief a little. Over weeks and months, those small choices add up to a different relationship with your own potential. Mini-C creativity grows into Little-C, and for some, eventually into Pro-C.
Start by noticing the creative choices you’re already making.
Each small creative choice strengthens your belief in your own ability, and over months those choices add up to a different relationship with your potential.
Characteristics of Creative People
Research identifies several traits that show up in highly creative people, and every one of them can be developed4
- Openness to experience: The single strongest personality predictor of creativity. Creative people actively seek novel ideas, perspectives, and sensory experiences.
- Tolerance for ambiguity: Comfort sitting with uncertainty rather than rushing to a “right” answer.
- Willingness to take risks: A habit of trying things that might not work.
- Cognitive flexibility: The ability to switch between different perspectives and approaches.
- Childlike curiosity: A genuine interest in how things work and why things are the way they are.
- Persistence through failure: A poll of 143 creativity researchers identified perseverance and resilience as the number one ingredient for creative achievement.2
About Chase Jarvis
Chase Jarvis is an award-winning photographer, director, and entrepreneur. He has created campaigns for Nike, Apple, Microsoft, Google, and Red Bull. His documentary Portrait of a City received an Emmy nomination in 2014.1 He co-founded CreativeLive in 2010, an online education platform that has served over ten million students learning photography, design, business, and other creative skills.11 His book Creative Calling (2019) became a Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, and Publishers Weekly bestseller.12 His latest book, Never Play It Safe, was published in 2024.
Frequently Asked Questions
How do you find your creative calling?
Research suggests a three-stage path: first, expose yourself to wide-ranging influences and notice what grabs you (intake). Second, learn by modeling others and discovering where you naturally differ from your influences (imitation). Third, lean into your unique style that emerges when your imitations diverge (divergence). Chase Jarvis’s IDEA framework (Imagine, Design, Execute, Amplify) provides a structured approach for working through these stages.
What are the 7 C's of creativity?
Developed by researcher Todd Lubart in 2017, the 7 C’s are: Creators (the individual), Creating (the process), Collaborations (social interaction), Contexts (environment), Creations (the product), Consumption (how work is received), and Curricula (how creativity is taught). This framework modernizes the classic “4 P’s” model by accounting for social and educational dimensions of creativity.
What are the characteristics of a creative person?
Research identifies openness to experience as the strongest predictor, followed by cognitive flexibility, tolerance for ambiguity, willingness to take risks, persistence through failure, and childlike curiosity. A poll of 143 creativity researchers ranked perseverance and resilience as the top ingredient for creative achievement. All of these traits can be developed through deliberate practice.
Is creativity a skill or a talent?
Neuroscience research shows that every human brain has the machinery for creative thinking. Creativity behaves more like a habit than a fixed skill. The more you practice generating ideas, combining concepts, and experimenting with new approaches, the stronger your creative capacity becomes. George Land’s NASA study found that 98% of five-year-olds scored at genius level for divergent thinking, suggesting creative ability is innate but often suppressed through education and social conditioning.
What are the four main pillars of creativity?
The most widely recognized framework is Mel Rhodes’s 4 P’s (1961): Person (individual traits and mindset), Process (the mental stages of creating), Press/Environment (surroundings that encourage or stifle creativity), and Product (the creative output itself). An alternative is the Four C Model by Kaufman and Beghetto, which maps creativity across four levels: Mini-C (personal insights), Little-C (everyday creativity), Pro-C (professional expertise), and Big-C (legendary innovation).
Creative Calling Takeaway
Chase Jarvis’s core message has decades of research behind it. Creativity is a universal human capacity that most people have been conditioned to ignore. Here’s how to reclaim it:
- Identify your labels. Write down the identity labels you received as a child and question whether they still serve you.
- Redefine creativity broadly. Start noticing the Mini-C and Little-C creative choices you make every day: problem-solving at work, improvising dinner, taking a different route home.
- Use the IDEA framework. Imagine what you’d create without constraints, Design a daily system to support it, Execute consistently (even for just 2 minutes), and Amplify by sharing your work and finding your creative community.
- Build the habit. Choose one small daily creative act and commit to it for 66 days. A creative day tends to lift the next day’s mood, so the payoff arrives early.
- Separate brainstorming from judgment. When generating ideas, turn off your inner critic completely. Evaluate later. This single change addresses the primary reason adults score so much lower on creative thinking tests than children.
