Building Curiosity
What Is Curiosity?
One of the key ways to build a growth mindset is to build the attitude of being curious. It is considered a character strength, which are believed to be more trait-like and stable, but it is also a skill that can be developed. People who are lucky to have Curiosity as a signature strength (https://www.viacharacter.org/character-strengths/curiosity) are interested in exploring new ideas, activities and experiences and draw their energy from doing these activities. It is described as novelty seeking and the natural desire to build knowledge. I always suggest to focus on balancing your signature strengths, but curiosity may be the one character strength that is worth building as a skill, if it doesn’t come naturally to you. Why? Turns out, there are some great benefits.
Why Is Curiosity Important?
Curiosity can boost achievement, cause others to see you as more empathetic and can strengthen your relationships (https://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/six_surprising_benefits_of_curiosity#thank-influence). People who are more curious tend to be more engaged and enjoy learning in academic environments, but also be more engaged and have higher performance at work. Curiosity can build empathy by asking great questions and deepen our understanding of others who have different experiences and worldviews than our own. It can also strengthen relationships by showing an interest in others, again, through great questions. Curiosity can help you demonstrate warmth and genuineness.
Curious people are even happier. They demonstrate more positive emotions and less anxious ones. They also report greater life satisfaction and greater psychological well-being. So, if you are not naturally curious, it may be of benefit to develop the skill of being more curious.
How Do You Develop Curiosity?
One way is to look for ways to increase your personal knowledge. What knowledge, skill or ability can you be curious about that would bring personal benefit to you? You could start by identifying a sore spot and working backwards to find the knowledge, skill or ability to help with that sore spot. It can be the case that when there is a problem or issue, we turn away from being curious in order to defend our ego.
The second way is to let yourself “wonder” about different issues, rather than “having an answer”. As a professor, that can be a tall order. I had a great professor who taught through way of example of being okay with not knowing. When asked a question in the classroom and he didn’t know the answer, he would say, “I don’t know, but I will get back to you”. It modeled it was okay not to have all of the answers. In private moments doing research, he would take it a step further and say out loud, “I wonder” and pause to think about difficult topics.
In anyone’s job, especially depending on the culture of the organization, it can be difficult to appear to “not know” something. The desire to be right and the avoidance of being wrong can do a disservice to curiosity. It is important to take stock of what our attitude is. Is it to be right? Or to be curious?
Another way to be curious is to develop the skill of “rethinking” made popular by Adam Grant. Rethinking is the ability to have humility about our convictions, doubt ourself and try to discover the world with a scientist mindset. It is the ability to see disagreements as an opportunity to learn or unlearn what we previously believed to be true. It is a mental flexibility that allows us not to believe everything we think.
Rethinking Cycle from Adam Grant’s book Think Again
Hopefully, you are curious about becoming more curious. You can explore increasing your knowledge, leave time to wonder and practice rethinking.