9 Tiny Habits That Make Your Art Feel More Like You

Follow curiosity before trends

Trends create replicas. Curiosity creates fingerprints.

We all know this, but still forget it constantly. 

It’s so easy to start wondering what will sell, what will get clicks, what will perform well. But finding your voice often means paying closer attention to where your creativity is actually trying to go.

I’ve been working on a project on and off for years, and I kept reshaping it based on what I thought would be easiest to market. A couple of weeks ago, I hit a point where I was just bored with it.

Not confused. Not stuck. Just…uninterested.

So I followed my curiosity instead. Now I’m deep into a completely different version of the work, one that’s led by interest rather than strategy. It feels less forced. More like a trail than a plan. 

Make your own things before consuming everyone else’s work

Protect your instincts before comparison barges into the studio wearing muddy boots.

This isn’t a new idea, but it’s one that's so easy to forget. Consuming is easy. Creating asks more of you. And lately, I’ve gotten very good at consuming.

The idea of waking up and making something before I consume anything feels slightly intimidating. What would that even look like in practice? What would change if I did it for 30 days? 

Stop sanding away your weirdness

The “strange little choices” are often where your voice lives.

I notice this most in my writing. I tend to write in a choppy, blunt structure. It’s not polished in a traditional sense, and I’m sure an editor could smooth it into something more conventional.

But I don’t want conventional. I want recognizable.

Because if you sand everything down too much, eventually we all start to look like we came out of the same big-box store.

Finish more small things

Creative identity is shaped through completed work, not just imagined brilliance.

I have no shortage of imagined brilliance. In my head, everything is incredible, fully formed, fully realized, slightly cinematic.

And then I often stop before it exists anywhere else.

Finishing smaller things helps bridge that gap. It turns ideas into evidence. It builds creative authority one completed piece at a time, instead of a thousand unfinished possibilities.

Protect boredom and silence

Your instincts get louder when the noise dies down.

I almost never experience boredom anymore. There is always something on: a podcast, an episode of Fraiser on in the background, music, conversations overheard from coffee shop tables. (I would never purposely listen in with my headphones and nothing playing…)

But I remember boredom differently from when I was younger. It wasn’t empty. It was rich with creativity.

If I said I was bored, my mom would immediately find a list of chores I could “help with,” which somehow always made me run off to find something better to do. 

Things just used to be quieter.  A boring trip to the carpet store turned into a “floor-is-lava” game and waiting rooms into improv stages.

Eventually, I learned and started saying something closer to the truth: “I want to make something.”

Usually, that meant I wanted to make a mess: paint, make Barbie clothes, concoct something in the kitchen, anything that turned stillness into action.

Let yourself become recognizable

You do not need to reinvent your entire identity every week to stay relevant.

There is a quiet pressure to constantly evolve, constantly shift, constantly prove you’re not repeating yourself.

But recognition often comes from repetition, from returning to certain shapes, tones, moods, or ideas again and again until they become unmistakably yours.

Make things that aren’t optimized

Not every creative act needs to become content, branding, or strategy.

This one feels more relevant every year.

There is a constant pull to justify what we make before we even make it; to ensure it has value, marketability, or a clear audience.

And yes, some of what we make does need to be sustainable. We need to eat.

But not everything needs to be optimized.

Some of the most meaningful things I’ve ever made would never pass that filter, including, I should say, those very un-sellable Barbie clothes. (Also: I can’t sew…)

Notice what comes naturally

What kinds of compositions, stories, moods, rhythms, or aesthetics do you instinctively return to?

I notice I keep returning to two specific creative directions. Not because I’ve decided to, but because I naturally drift back toward them.

That repetition is information.

It might be the clearest clue I have about what my creative voice actually is.

Make more decisions without polling the internet

Creative authority grows every time you trust your own eye, ear, instinct, or taste.

It’s easy to reach outward for validation, especially early in the process. And that has its place.

But it works best later, not first.

The more I learn, the more I realize creative clarity doesn’t come from asking more people what to do. It comes from practicing the moment where you already know.