 CULTIVATE CURIOSITYWelcome to the second article in my series on professional resilience. In this article, you'll learn how to cultivate a mindset of continuous curiosity in service of building your professional resilience. Curiosity is defined as "a strong desire to know or learn something." It seems obvious that we should always be curious in every part of our lives, but the human truth is that we tend to slack off when we get comfortable. Here are my tips for cultivating continuous curiosity, especially when we are comfortable: Ask "What?" and "How?" questions. These questions open the vista, expand the horizon. Here are some of my favorites:
Seek to understand rather than to problem-solve. We are wired, conditioned and rewarded, particularly in the U.S. culture, to fix problems. When we use our curiosity to understand rather than problem-solve, we focus on expanding our understanding, opening up to new possibilities and allowing ourselves to be beginners. We set ourselves up to learn exactly the right information we need to move forward. This article by Elizabeth Gilbert is my FAVORITE on the topic of curiosity. Step into not knowing. Every day. Eleanor Roosevelt famously said, "Do one thing every day that scares you." When I first heard this quote I took it quite literally and immediately gave up. There was no way I was going to do something scary every day. Then after sitting with the quote for a while, I realized I could indeed adopt the mindset of doing scary stuff. I could look for opportunities every day to step out of my comfort zone and do something risky/scary/novel/fresh. What might you do?
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