10 Reasons Your CURRENT Day Job is Creative (Really)

trapped in a day job

In a couple hours, I will don my costume for the day. I call it ‘business casual.’

I will sport a professional, corporate look.

I shall spend the morning in a sales meeting and the afternoon strategizing, making phone calls and working with the marketing department.

Ladies and gentlemen: I am a public relations manager.

Yet, I still consider myself a creative. Are you in the same boat? You’re waiting tables at the diner. You’re answering phone calls in a cubicle. You’re picking up endless messes from the kiddos.

We are all creative.

Today, our jobs are creative because like every prolific artist:

  1. We will influence the way people see something.
  2. We will share joy.
  3. We will connect rather than just exist.
  4. We will employ our mediums, whatever they may be, to communicate our ideas.
  5. We will think as creatives think.
  6. We will bring life to our workplace.
  7. We will entertain.
  8. We will believe that our work is good.
  9. We will help.
  10. We will contribute.

Time to put on that costume now, and I’m thankful. Thankful that it’s my choice to see this day job as an artist does.

How do we, as creatives, change our thinking to make our day jobs more than a mere paycheck-generator?

Would love to hear your tips below in the comments!

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Author: Andrew Zahn

I'm a son, husband, dad, business owner, actor and good sleeper/eater. On this blog, I pave a highway for creative growth by providing food, water, and shelter for those wishing to live, work, and play with creative zest.

11 thoughts on “10 Reasons Your CURRENT Day Job is Creative (Really)”

  2. I look at it as much more than just a job. I manage a team of 11 ladies. I look at it as an opportunity to influence others lives for better. I have to get creative sometimes.

  3. Thanks for the excellent reminders! As a High School teacher, my ‘customers’ don’t always want what I have to ‘sell’.

  4. I work as a graphic designer for the federal government (I’m not a designer for the entire federal government, just one agency). Last July I became fully eligible for retirement. My son, coincidently, started college a month and a half later. So, I think I’m here for another 4 years (revise that: 3.5 years). I was surprised at how just the possibility of retirement changed my outlook. It is liberating actually, and it has given me a whole new perspective. It gives me license to be more experimental and push back just a little harder. So by becoming eligible for retirement I can be more creative in my day job for the next 41 months. Not that anyone is counting….

  5. Andrew, it’s so encouraging to me that you are a PR manager! I am studying Ad/PR right now, but I dream about writing and filmmaking. Knowing that you continue to create inside and outside the office gives me incredible hope. Thanks you!

    1. PR is actually a great skill for writing and filmmaking. I do a fair share of amateur video editing and help direct and edit regional tv commercials!

      We should connect!

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