5 Ways to Increase your Curiosity

You were born with curiosity. You just lost sight of it somewhere along the way. Life hammered it dull as the years stacked up and too many voices got into your head trying to enforce the status quo.

Give those voices the boot and embrace your curiosity again. It’s a natural trait that we are born with and is something we all have. But it’s also something we all lose sight of sometimes. That’s why it’s important to slam on the breaks and explore the things that bring your soul to life, that feed your drive to know something, to learn something, and to experience something. Give yourself permission to let your mind wander and see what happens

Curiosity is an attribute that can help you grow personally and professionally. You’re more likely to achieve your goals, get better at what you do, and create more happiness in your life when you embrace it fully and let yourself wander about the world around you.

Curiosity is a state of being interested in new things, or eager to find out more. If you want to be more curious and creative in your everyday life, here are five ways to make that happen. Let’s dive in.

5 ways to increase your curiosity:

1. Cultivate curiosity
2. Collect questions, not just answers
3. Stay open to new experiences
4. Read
5. Keep a curiosity journal

Cultivate curiosity

It’s essential to cultivate curiosity, and not just for the sake of innovation, but to make your job and your life more enjoyable and interesting. Curiosity feeds creativity and both add to your quality of life. What’s more, the more you discover about a subject, the more connections you’ll make between concepts and thoughts, which will lead to more ideas. And all of this feeds your creativity, which in turn feeds your ability to solve problems in new and exciting ways.

So, take time to let your mind wander, and push yourself to learn new things. Dive into experiences with a childlike curiosity, asking questions, letting yourself think things through, and even letting yourself come up against questions you can’t answer right now. These all help you grow.

You can be curious about anything and everything. The world is full of interesting things that we never get around to exploring. Cultivating your curiosity will help you become more willing to try new things and ultimately lead you to more creativity. One feeds the other.

Collect questions, not just answers

This is important, so pay attention. You can, and should, ask questions you don’t know the answers to. It’s how you grow.

Collect questions, not just answers. This is because asking questions helps you understand a problem better, which in turn allows you to find creative solutions. There’s an art and a craft to asking the right questions, so you can increase your creativity and productivity.

“You can engage your curiosity by asking yourself questions to spark your imagination: What do I want to do? Why do I want to do it? What small thing can I do right now to get started?” (Ryder Carroll, The Bullet Journal Method)

Curiosity drives imagination, making an individual more creative. In a world of information overload, a world that is often too busy to let the mind wander, much less to focus on questions and not just answers, making time to ask questions of things is vital. Curiosity helps individuals stay inspired and inquire about the world, which is how they stay sharp and hone their edge, how they gain not just knowledge, but learn how to apply it.

Here’s a pro tip: It’s curiosity that fuels creativity. Questions carry that fuel from one to the other. Creative questions lead to curiosity, and curious questions lead to creativity.

In a world that’s increasingly distracted by the rapid pace of information and technology, the ability to generate questions is a skill that separates those who create from those who don’t.

Stay open to new experiences

If you want to take your thirst for knowledge and hunger for next-level creativity to new heights, dare yourself to have new experiences. Do things you have never done before, take classes, watch documentaries, go for weekend road trips, pay attention to the world around you, and always be looking for opportunities to do and try new things.

“The thirst for knowledge, a tremendous curiosity about life, a wealth of experiences and not being afraid to work are the top credentials for being a good copywriter.” (Joseph Sugarman, The Adweek Copywriting Handbook)

The best way to increase your curiosity is to do things that challenge and frustrate you. If you’re passionate about a certain type of art or music, but can’t draw or play an instrument, you can turn that passion into reality by breaking the process down into several smaller steps — several smaller experiences.

Keep this in mind: A lack of curiosity will lead to stagnation in other areas of your professional and personal life. Your mind needs things to chew on, to think about, to ponder, to wander about.

The key to creativity is being open to new experiences and ideas. When you’re open to new things, you’re more likely to find inspiration in things that already exist. In fact, one of the ways to increase your creativity is to find ways to surround yourself with things that excite you.

“The explanation that Einstein himself most often gave for his mental accomplishments was his curiosity. As he put it near the end of his life, “I have no special talents, I am only passionately curious.”” (Walter Isaacson, Einstein)

Don’t just surround yourself with works of art, think about what other things inspire you. Think about the movies, books, tv shows, and musicians that excite you. Be an active reader of blogs, magazines, and books. The more you know about the world and what’s going on here, the more likely you are to make interesting additions to it.

Curiosity is one of the best qualities you can have. It’s like a built-in GPS for your brain. It opens new avenues to the world, ignites your passions, and inspires endless exploration and adventures in life.

Read, read, read, and read some more

One of the most powerful ways to increase your curiosity is by reading. Research has shown that the more you explore a subject, the more ideas and questions you have, and the more likely you are to find your own way to solve a problem. The key is to start thinking outside of the box, and thinking about how other people might think or see things.

Reading is one of the best ways to keep your mind stimulated. Research suggests that reading:

• Lowers stress levels
• Increases empathy
• Boosts creativity
• And enhances your memory

Whether you want to be more knowledgeable in your field, develop your creativity, or engage with new ideas, exploring other’s perspectives is an essential part of becoming a curious person and motivates you to create.

Any book can teach you something but the secret is in reading through books that aren’t about what you “think” you want to know about. As you read about new ideas, concepts, and experiences you’ll be feeding your curiosity and creativity at the same time. Let your brain become like a sponge, soak up everything you possibly can. You never know which ideas might bang together and give you that spark you’re going to need later.

Keep a curiosity journal

So, how do you keep track of what you’re feeding your curiosity? I recommend that you keep a curiosity journal. In fact, keeping a journal is itself a form of developing your curiosity and exercising your creativity. I’m a huge fan of journal keeping, and for more than just keeping up with things or trying to be productive. Your journal is your most powerful tool for sharpening your edge as a creative entrepreneur and producer in the creator economy.

“There never has been, nor will there ever be, another like you. Your singular perspective may patch some small hole in the vast tattered fabric of humanity.” (Ryder Carroll, The Bullet Journal Method)

whenever something piques your curiosity, document it in a curiosity journal. you can use a digital app, a notebook, or my personal favorite, a Bullet Journal. Whatever method you use, don’t be afraid to write down questions in it, and plot your journey to finding its answer. The answer isn’t the important part either, not at first. It’s learning how to ask questions that really gives you a distinct advantage.

And don’t be afraid to ask tough questions, the ones you don’t already know the answers to. It’s the things that make you curious that have all the potential of sparking ideas and finding new connections between things in the future.

Thinking outside the box can help you find solutions to problems and make better decisions, and reading is one of the best ways to open yourself up to the thoughts and ideas of others. It’s in the exposure to the thoughts and ideas of others, the perspectives and unique approaches to problem-solving and interaction with life itself, that we find the tools and means to destroy any box trying to wall us off from the world. Curiosity is the key to innovation and creativity in every area of your life. The best way to generate new ideas is to challenge your beliefs and open your mind.

Takeaway

Curiosity is a powerful thing. It expands your knowledge, encourages you to follow your passions, and pushes you towards new possibilities. Curiosity is a means to achieving so much- from increased knowledge to next-level creativity.

The pursuit of curiosity is at the root of all creativity. Just as you need food to nourish your body and mind, you need ideas and passions to keep you inspired. The more you explore, the more ideas you get.

Don’t settle for the status quo, destroy it. This is how: Learn to be more curious and increase your creativity.