This is my occasional reminder to use your creativity.

Not because you need to produce something impressive. Not because you should start a business, sell your work, or become an expert.

Use your creativity because it’s good for you.

Creative activities give our brains somewhere else to go. They can interrupt worry, help us process emotions, encourage curiosity, and bring us into the present moment.

And here’s the best part: you don’t have to be good at something to receive the benefits of doing it.

You can paint something no one else will see. Write a terrible first draft. Sing loudly in the car. Rearrange a room, try a new recipe, take photos, plant flowers, make a playlist, or doodle while you’re on the phone.

Creativity isn’t reserved for people who call themselves artists. It belongs to all of us.

It’s easy to lose touch with creativity as adults. We become focused on being productive and doing things correctly. We forget what it feels like to experiment simply because something seems interesting or fun.

So, what would you like to try if you didn’t have to be good at it?

Give yourself permission to play. Make something. Try something. Follow an idea without worrying about whether it will lead anywhere useful.

The value may be in the experience itself—the few minutes when your mind quiets, your energy shifts, and you remember that you’re capable of creating something that wasn’t there before.

Find a small way to be creative today.

A friend recently told me that one way she is staying hopeful is by mostly ignoring the daily news.

She said, “The world has always been a crazy mess. We just know more about it because of social media.”

There’s some truth in that.

We now have access to bad news from everywhere, all day long. Before we’ve even had our coffee, we can read about tragedies, conflict, injustice, and arguments happening all over the world.

Being informed matters. Paying attention can help us make thoughtful decisions and take meaningful action.

But there is a difference between being informed and allowing a steady stream of negative voices into our heads all day.

Consuming more news doesn’t necessarily make us more helpful. Sometimes it simply makes us feel overwhelmed, angry, frightened, or powerless.

That’s why we need boundaries.

Maybe you check the news once a day instead of every hour. Maybe you choose a few reliable sources and stop letting social media decide what receives your attention. Maybe you take a break when you notice that the information isn’t helping you understand—it’s simply increasing your anxiety.

Protecting your peace doesn’t mean you don’t care. It means recognizing that your attention and emotional energy are limited resources.

You can care about the world without carrying the entire world in your nervous system every minute of the day.

Stay informed enough to participate. Step away often enough to remember that goodness, beauty, and generosity are still happening too.

Hope needs room to breathe. Give it some space today.

It’s time for a garden update and I am very happy to report that our tiny garden is thriving.

This year, we’re getting tons of tomatoes and cucumbers. Not just enough for us, but enough to share.

There’s something so satisfying about walking outside, seeing what’s ready, and bringing it into the kitchen. But being able to hand some of it to a friend or neighbor makes it even better.

We’ve tried gardening before with mixed results. Some years, the rabbits and deer seemed to enjoy the garden more than we did. Other years, the plants simply didn’t produce very much.

But we kept trying.

This year, the right combination of attention, weather, experience, and probably a little luck came together. Now, our tiny garden is giving us more than we expected.

It reminded me that growth doesn’t always happen on our preferred schedule. Sometimes you do the work and don’t see much of a result. But you still learn something. You make adjustments, try again, and give growth another chance.

Then one day, you realize you have more than enough.

Enough knowledge to help someone else. Enough encouragement to share. Enough experience to make another person’s path a little easier.

Abundance doesn’t always look like something enormous. Sometimes it looks like a handful of tomatoes and a few extra cucumbers from a tiny garden.

Celebrate what’s growing in your life. And when you have a little extra, share it.

I was on a call today and shared something I want to do in my business that involved gifting something to others.

The person listening responded, “I’m here for radical generosity.”

I love that term: radical generosity.

It goes beyond giving when it’s easy or sharing whatever we have left over. Radical generosity asks us to think bigger. What could we offer freely that might encourage someone, open a door, solve a problem, or help another person believe in what’s possible?

And generosity isn’t only about money.

We can be generous with our time, attention, encouragement, knowledge, connections, and ideas. We can make the introduction. Share the opportunity. Recommend someone when their name isn’t in the room. Tell people what we appreciate about them while they are here to hear it.

What would the world look like if we all practiced radical generosity?

Maybe workplaces would feel more collaborative and less competitive. Maybe people would feel less alone. Maybe we would stop holding so tightly to what we know and start looking for ways to help one another move forward.

Generosity creates momentum. When someone is generous with us, we often want to pass that feeling along to someone else.

And it doesn’t have to begin with a grand gesture.

Send the note. Share the resource. Offer the compliment. Give someone your full attention. Ask, “How can I help?”—and mean it.

Today, look for one opportunity to be radically generous. You may never know the full impact of what you give, but that doesn’t make it any less meaningful.

Recently, I saw Shola Richards wearing a shirt that said, “Kindness is a decision.”

Shola writes a Substack called Strong Enough to Be Kind, which I’ll link to in the episode notes. That phrase, kindness is a decision, stayed with me.

We sometimes treat kindness like a personality trait. Some people are naturally kind, and others aren’t. Or we think kindness depends on our mood, our circumstances, or how someone else treats us first.

But kindness is a decision, a choice we can make for ourselves.

We get to decide how we respond to the people we encounter every day. The person moving too slowly in front of us, or the guy who cut in front of us in traffic don’t get to decide. Neither does the overwhelmed employee waiting on us or the family member who calls at an inconvenient time. Any or all of them may may be having a much harder day than we realize.

So, we get to decide to be kind. Because that’s how we want to show up. 

That doesn’t mean we have to tolerate disrespect or abandon our boundaries. Kindness isn’t weakness, and it doesn’t require us to say yes or allow others to take advantage of us.

It simply means that we can choose to move through the world without making someone else’s day harder.

We can be patient. We can look people in the eye. We can assume good intentions. We can pause before responding when we’re frustrated.

Every interaction gives us a choice.

Today, decide how you want people to feel after spending time with you, even if it’s only for a few minutes.

Choose kindness. It might feel like a small thing, but small decisions can change the tone of an entire for you and for the people you interact with.

https://sholarichards.substack.com/

Maybe you've been hesitant to claim mentor or singer or artist or writer too. Today is a good day to change that! You get to decide who you want to be and see how it fits.

A handwritten note feels especially meaningful in our digital world. It’s a simple, personal way to show someone they’re appreciated—and worth a few extra minutes of your time.

When your days feel repetitive, a little novelty can help. Change your location, do something ordinary differently or give yourself something fun to anticipate.

Good listening isn’t about preparing the perfect response. It’s about slowing down, asking thoughtful questions and giving someone the space to feel heard.

Being let down by someone close to you hurts. Give yourself space to feel it, talk honestly about what happened and decide whether the relationship needs grace, repair or stronger boundaries.