Using curiosity as fuel for growth
What is the consequence for not being curious? For not opening a door that might lead to something better?
I got to talk about curiosity, and related concepts growth mindset and openness, with Emily Leathers for her podcast Emotional Leadership. In episode 11, we talked what curiosity is, how it feels, and how you can use personality assessments to measure how open you tend to be so you can cultivate more of it in your life and work.
The following is an excerpt of that conversation, reprinted with permission.
Curiosity is king
If you want to grow your career, this one trait is absolutely essential. We hear a lot about, I think growth mindset now, which is essentially rooted in curiosity, right? [The idea] that you can further develop it. It helps to have, you know, a baseline, right? I encourage everyone to take the Big Five personality test. It is reliable as an assessment. There are many assessments out there, not all of them are actually rooted in science. This one is. But that essential trait is Curiosity and it’s essentially defined as a strong desire to know or learn something.
But it's so much more than that! When you're curious, you're open. You want to explore new ideas, experiences, possibilities, right? Open to meeting new people, making that connection at work, right? Talking to that executive or talking to that team lead. You're open to leaving behind the past and only acting in the present moment saying, what is the current reality? Get rid of the outdated mindsets, get rid of those limiting beliefs and that allows you to make room for that next self. It allows you to make room for that future self, that career path, that person that you've defined yourself as being or wanting to be. That curiosity allows you to do that. It fuels your growth.
Through mindfulness, through that practice, through reflection, you can train your brain to process what's happening in the moment, recognize the emotions as they're coming up and decide in the moment whether or not those safety based emotions make sense and you can decide that they don't and move through it. And you can decide to frame things differently and move into a new space.
When I'm in an environment in which my curiosity and the actions that I've taken through curiosity, leaning into that have not resulted in an outcome that was positive for me and I continue to see that response occurring--maybe it's on my team with a leader who is non-responsive or responds poorly to that type of behavior--you learn then what is possible. And the framework that you had been operating in may have been larger and you have to make it smaller. As a result, you may have entered into a team in which you have a leader who is not open. And so you limit your curiosity in that environment.
Fixed Mindset vs. Growth Mindset
Oftentimes, the kind of fixed mindset phrases are "I can't" or "I'm bad at." And that could be, I'm bad at influencing, right? I'm bad at challenging. I can't approach this person with this ask. The other side of that is simply "I can't YET." Which is shifting yourself into that learning mindset, right? It's very positive. You know you're going to get there. It's goal oriented phrase and all you did was add “yet,” right? I'm getting goosebumps just saying that--I can't yet, but I will. Or acknowledging what you currently struggle with. "I currently struggle with" is much different than "I can't." Those small tweaks in language really help shift the mindset, right? And can lead to really profound changes in itself.
And of course, it's a practice. So you'll start to take on those phrases--I currently struggle with, I can't do this yet, but I will, I'm going to set a goal around this thing. You're still going to struggle day to day, but like any habit, you eventually will find that the things that were causing you anxiety, that you were fearing before, you no longer are. It's no longer an active thought process that you're having with new situations. It's now automatic. And so instead of fear, you will not have that negative or unhappy or stagnant feeling, right? Because you're learning new things. You're now open to the possibilities and you're challenging others in areas of needed growth. You are suggesting new ideas and you see other people being open to them because you've learned how to convey a message that is also right for the audience. You'll transform into a lifelong learner. And you're not going to notice that as it happens over time. You might one day, all of a sudden, kind of feel different and think, Oh, there it is! Because you've been behaving in that way and you feel more positive.
When conflicted on whether to act or now, the question to ask yourself is: what is the consequence for not doing this?
What are you sacrificing? What is that better possibility, that open door that you are closing as a result of not taking this action?
You've got to approach things with the brain in mind. That's why I like the NeuroLeadership Institute so much, is that the fear is natural, but it's often unnecessary. We're not met life or death situations in the workforce generally, for most of us.
Knowing that, educating ourselves about how our brain functions helps us be better managers, leaders, humans. It's imperative that managers are on a quest for self discovery and their own clarity because their role is so important, as it's influencing the decisions and the development of others. So knowing oneself is really the starting point for everyone. Increasing your own self awareness will make everything else that much easier, to know why you do a certain thing, right? What your tendencies are. Take a big five personality test! How open are you or not open are you? How does that affect your decisions? How does that affect the way that you hear other people, new ideas? Just knowing that you can help yourself, in decision making moments, to know that, alright, I tend to be less open. How can I through language shift that? How can I teach myself to be more open? It's pivotal.
Mindfulness matters
That constant reflection of, why am I feeling this? What is this thing that I'm feeling? Can I articulate the emotion and what is it asking me to do? And do I want to do that thing? And the more that you practice mindfulness, the more that you increase your self awareness and self regulation, your emotional intelligence, you can have that conversation in your mind pretty quick, as you're being met with new situations. You've got to lean into the fear and failure and accept that it is okay and it will happen and it should happen because if you're not failing, you're not trying. And experimentation is part of the learning process. So yes, take risks, take calculated risks, and learn from those failures.
