The Law of Curiosity is our February article. It’s another continuous article from the book written by John Maxwell about the 15 Laws of Growth. So, let’s start!
Let’s start with this question. “Will forcing ourselves to ask continuous questions help us grow better?”
Both you and I might often think or believe kids are the most curious mankind. They asked many questions without feeling guilty. But that’s how kids absorb all the information and become knowledgeable. If we want to ask good questions, we should forget or care less about how people will see us. “Curiosity is the key to being a life-long learner, and people who remain curious don’t need to be encouraged to ask questions or explore.” It’s the way to discover yourself more and teaches us to discover our surroundings better.
Talking about curiosity often leads us to expand and think beyond the ordinary. Being curious doesn’t have to be being nosy to all things. We need to be able to read the room for that. Einstein mentioned that “all meaningful and lasting change starts first in your imagination and then works its way out.”
There are 10 suggestions to nurture and cultivate curiosity:
Believe first that you can be curious.
Limiting beliefs will also limit you and even your progress. “We can’t perform outwardly in a way that is inconsistent with how we think inwardly.”
“You can’t be what you believe you aren’t.” If you don’t turn your curiosity on, you won’t be able to explore the unknown and discover the hidden things. Permit yourself to be curious; the only thing that separates those who are curious growing people from those who aren’t is the belief they can learn, grow, and change.
Beginner’s mindset
As I mentioned above, being curious doesn’t have to be nosy; being curious also allows you to be open and vulnerable. With a beginner’s mindset, our desire to learn is more prominent than our desire to look good. We will also care less about other people’s thoughts and ask questions like a child does.
“Anytime a person is answering more than asking, you can be sure they’ve slowed down in their growth and have lost the fire for personal growth.”
Befriend and familiar with “WHY”
According to the book’s author, “growing leaders focused on asking questions, rather than giving answers.” The key to asking good questions is to ask focused than yes-no questions. If people have a victim mindset, they often ask, “Why me?” Even though it starts with “why,” not all “why” questions direct you to growth. Anyone who knows all the answers is not asking the right questions.
Surround yourself with like-minded people.
At first, curiosity is encouraged, and after that, it’s your turn to decide. Many formal educations direct people to answers. The people who can answer are more likely to get noticed than those bombarded with questions. Many people believe that asking questions is just for those less intelligent than others.
Now, after completing formal education and after reading this passage, how do you describe yourself? Are you still the one who believes that asking questions isn’t for anyone and that they’re less intelligent than some people?
When taught to follow the book’s rules, it’s hard to surround ourselves with like-minded people. Being curious means we’re getting farther than a safe range of distance. It’s full of unpredictable, unfamiliar and ambiguous stuff.
Being around people with great curiosity is contagious.
Be a learner
The best way to start becoming curious is to have the mindset and determination to learn, experience, and meet someone new. Each day can lead to another opportunity to experience something greater, or if things turn out to be the opposite, it will teach us something. When doing this, make sure to keep your eyes and ears open and maintain awareness while at the same time ignoring distractions.
Fruit of failure
Are you the type of person who sees failure as a sign of weakness or progress?
In day-to-day life, it’s impossible to continually try without partaking in failure. No one in this world would ever want to fail. No matter how hard we try to avoid failing at something, we can’t escape it. It’s the reality that we should accept.
If you have the mindset to move on and learn from your past failure, you will have the mindset to learn something from it. As a result, instead of avoiding failure by trying hard to make a perfect plan, you tend to believe that “fail fast, learn fast and get to try again fast.”
There is no perfect answer or definite solution.
Here is another fact that people often find it hard to set the same beliefs
“Looking the right answers to any questions is a problem.”
Because even though it looks like the only way to escape and get out from something is through one door, believe it or not, the universe isn’t that petty. There is always more than one solution. If you are the type of person who thinks there’s only one way out, at some point, you will reach your limit and become frustrated either with yourself or with blaming something else.
But if you think you have found “that” one door, you will stop searching and still miss the better ideas. So, it’s better to know that “no idea is perfect.”
Almost every advance in any subject has occurred when someone challenged the rules and tried another approach. Roger van Oech.
Get over yourself
Just like children, don’t worry when you ask something. Don’t take so much care about how people might think about you when you say and question something. Who cares if you sound fool or stupid?
It’s better to look uninformed than to be uninformed.
Get out of the box
How many of you who read this article often find it hard to develop good ideas? If you find it hard, then we are in the same boat. I often find it hard to be creative. “Good ideas are everywhere, but it’s hard to see them when you won’t look outside the box.” When we try to see things from different angles, we might find something that has never existed in our heads.
Being creative is a gift. We should try things differently to let creativity flow in because it’s hard to find new ideas for something we do monotonously. When we are overly focused on problems, finding solutions or a way out is almost impossible. But, with a solution-oriented mindset, it is easy to break down the issues and find the solution to untangle them.
We all have limitations, and some of us believe we can’t do things because we have never experienced them and are just coming as near as imagining the feeling we will experience when we do things we had imagined.
The best way to make a sluggish mind active is to disturb its routine.
Enjoy your life
It starts with enjoying God’s grace by enjoying life and living it well. It means taking risks, sometimes failing, sometimes success, and continuously learning. When you enjoy life to the fullest, the boundaries between work and play blur. Do what we love and love what we do.
The book has written that doing something to fulfill someone’s expectations makes us less interested. But if we invent things and play with stuff for our entertainment, it’s more likely to keep doing it for a long-term period. When we are curious, the world will open its way, and there are only a few limits on what we can learn and how we can develop.
The cure for boredom is curiosity, and there is no cure for curiosity. — Dorothy Parker
To put it in actionable steps or plans:
- Never expect yourself to be an expert in something cause it will dull your willingness to learn and absorb things differently.
- Look at your circle and find those people with the same level of curiosity as you.
- Sign up to or learn something new that’s never been in your area of comfort.
Pick something you find fun or where you can’t be seen as an expert.
That’s the final sentence for this month’s article. As always, I hope you can get something positive out of it and live the best life each day. See you in the following article.
References
Maxwell, J. C. (2022). The 15 Invaluable Laws of Growth (10th Anniversary Edition): Live Them and Reach Your Potential. Hachette UK.
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