7 Tips to Cultivate Curiosity
Curiosity is a wonderous thing. Curiosity is a driving force that kick starts the learning process. If intelligence is the engine driving the wheels of action, curiosity is the fuel tank. Combine curiosity with vitality, and you have the perfect recipe to set the wheels of action in motion.
Humans are born with a strong intrinsic sense of curiosity, for the very purpose of our sensory organs is the acquisition of information. This is why humans that are born with a deficiency in one sense, very often develop heightened awareness in the other senses. The same amount of curiosity distributed over fewer senses.
As we discussed in the getting ready for action post, curiosity is a skill that humans unlearn as they grow. We unlearn it because when we ask questions, it can reveal the truth; and the truth can hurt if we are not ready to accept it and learn from it.
If we rekindle our curiosity with the world, this paves the way for us to become curious about ourselves. When we become curious about ourselves, we can begin to learn more about our own personality, strengths, growth areas, and superpowers. Once we know who we are, we are better able to plan where we are going.
Curiosity allows us to reconnect with our inner child and rekindle a sense of joyous wonder as we project ourselves out in to the world. Fancy being a bit more curious?
Let’s perform a health check on your curiosity and give them skills a boost.
Here are 7 tips to help you sharpen your skill of curiosity:
Accept That You Don’t Know Everything
Think of the mind like a cup. If it is full, there is no room for more water.
Accepting that you do not know everything means cultivating an open mind. Being open to new experience and growth. Grow the cup, and you shall receive more water.
When we have ideas rather than fixed beliefs, this opens our mind to the potential that what we know may not be right and may need to be update our understanding.
Search for these opportunities.
View failure as an opportunity to learn
Failure occurs when we perform an action expecting one outcome but we experience a different one. This is a failure in our understanding.
It means our ideas about ourselves and the world need to be updated.
Updating our understanding is the process of learning.
Learning is a growth.
When things stop growing, they start dying.
Use this idea to give you strength if find yourself having negative thoughts when you have failed.
Willingness to ask dumb questions
If you don’t understand something then the chances are that other people won’t either. There is no shame in asking questions to make sure that you understand something properly.
You may even find that when you begin to question something that is being explained to you, the person doing the explaining will begin to revaluate what they are saying.
I think of asking dumb questions as a public service. Someone needs to ask them, and it might as well be you!
Challenge Assumptions
This is the essence of asking dumb questions.
Humans very often formulate opinions, plans and strategies based upon a set of accepted rules, social conventions or methods. The thinking goes, that if things have always been like that, and everyone else accepts this, then why should I challenge it.
Challenging assumptions is about stripping thinking back to find the first truths that underpin everything. The immovable facts that must be accepted.
When we uncover the bedrock of truth, we can then build solid foundations for our thinking.
Question and challenge everything. Especially when you feel fear that you “shouldn’t”.
Look fear in the eye
Fear is a powerful emotion that can drive us to achieve great things.
The physiological booster that we get when we are afraid helps us better focus and prepare for action. The challenge with fear is to not become fixated by it.
When we learn to look fear in the eye, then turn our focus to the positive outcome that we want to achieve; we learn how to use fear to propel us. “Thanks for the shot of energy fear… I am moving onward and upwards!”
Know that fear exists and accept it. Be grateful for it, and use it as positive energy to boost you towards you goals.
Have fun with Routine
Routine is order and structure. It is important to have routine to ensue our basic needs are met for all round wellness both mentally and physically. Things like making sure we get enough sleep, planning time to prepare nutritious food, exercising, spend time with loved ones… routine helps us do all of this.
Routine and rules however are made to be broken!
Give yourself permission to break routine and do something new at least once a week.
Go for a walk in a new place, try something new for dinner, watch a movie from a random genre… move out of your comfort zone and into your learning zone.
Stick two fingers up to your routine and do something that excites you and makes you tingle. Your inner child will thank you for this and reward you with more vitality and a sprinkle of renewed curiosity.
Spend time outside with nature
Humans are a part of nature. Our bodies are constructed from the same matter as the trees, the birds and the grass. We breath the same air as all of the other living organisms on earth.
Have you heard the saying “think outside the box?”
Our perception of the world, is the box that is being referred to. Try breaking your routine by planning in a short period of time to spend outside with nature. It could be in your garden, in a local park or simply stood by a tree at the end of the road.
Plan the time in, so that when you go outside, you can dedicate yourself to the activity. Alone.
Feel the breeze on your face, and smell the scents that surround you. Take a deep breath and consider that you are breathing the same air as the trees.
Give yourself permission to expand; opening up your “box” to new possibilities. Visualise, then realise, a feeling of being free and unconstrained.
Be selfish and take some time for yourself. Time slow down and expand.
The Take Home
When you decide to cultivate a more curious mind, you are deciding to learn and grow. You are deciding to accept your responsibility to affect change in your own life.
To live life as the person that you want to be. The person that you truly are.
Reconnect with your inner child and rekindle your sense of curiosity today.
It gets easer the more you do it!
Enjoy, for now.
