Why Small Creative Wins Still Matter
Lately, I’ve been thinking about what progress looks like when life feels heavy — when your energy is unpredictable, your body doesn’t cooperate, or you just can’t seem to create the way you want to.
It’s easy to measure progress in the big milestones: finishing a piece, launching something new, feeling “in the flow.” But if we only celebrate those moments, we miss out on so many other victories along the way, and those are the ones that often matter most.
I used to think a “productive” creative day meant hours of deep focus or a finished piece I could share. But some of my favorite moments lately have been much smaller. Sometimes I don’t make anything worth keeping or looking back on, but the act of showing up and trying still feels like something I can be proud of.
Because here’s the thing: those small creative moments count, and they’re the foundation of the bigger ones that come later.
For those of us living with chronic illness or disability, the creative process doesn’t always look the way we imagine it should. There are days when energy is scarce, when focus slips, when our hands or joints or minds just won’t cooperate.
But maybe the goal isn’t to do more. Maybe the goal is to stay connected to the parts of ourselves that creating brings forward — curiosity, hope, imagination — even in small doses. A five-minute doodle, or a spark of an idea saved in your notes app is creative progress. It’s proof that you’re still reaching toward something meaningful even when your capacity changes.
Every creative journey is built on these smaller wins. They keep the creative muscle alive, even when you can’t go full-force. They help to remind you that you’re still you, even when your body slows you down.
Small creative wins look like:
•Rearranging your art supplies so your space feels inviting again.
•Journaling a few lines of a thought you don’t want to lose.
•Opening your sketchbook with no pressure to fill the page.
They don’t have to lead to anything “big” to matter. The doing itself is enough.
The more years that pass as I learn to balance creativity and managing chronic illness, the more I’ve learned to honor my own pace. It keeps me in a mindset of constant remembering that small wins aren’t lesser versions of success. They’re the framework that keeps creativity alive when life gets to feel uncertain.
You don’t have to create every day. You don’t have to finish the thing. You just have to stay connected to that spark, however you can. Every tiny creative effort adds up to be something real, something healing. I think we all deserve to experience that.
