The Curiosity Mindset

We live in a society that thrives on judgment. The explosion of reality television and the social media algorithmic curation have worked together to curate a culture that marinates us all in judgment. Snarky comments about the Housewives of [insert big city name here] is our currency, perusing other people’s fashion choices or vacation choices spawned the very concept of “influencing,” designed to sell lifestyles or products or both leveraging the weight of that currency. None of this is new, of course, the pages of Seventeen magazine told me many moons ago that I needed this look or this product to be beautiful or to fit in or to be considered “normal.” The internet just took this concept and blew it up so that our lives are constantly surrounded by comparisons, and our fears and anxieties around our own societal standing and competence have been weaponized in an effort for others to gain wealth and power and status.

Too often, we turn that judgment inward toward our own behaviors, “I shouldn’t do this,” or “this is the bar others have set, I need to outperform it.” We assign weights in our mind to things, and we need to constantly work to keep the scales even or in our favor, to be caught on the losing end means that all the work that we are doing is all for naught, and that is demoralizing and anxiety-producing.

So it is a monumental task, then, to attempt to stop the runaway train of our judgment and reactions based in fear and anxiety in terms of how we measure up, and instead work to replace those thoughts with the simple concept of curiosity. It is a big ask for my brain to switch from “Ugh, that person got to travel there, I’m so jealous,” or “that person has my dream house, and my little apartment is so small,” or “I can’t believe that person got that promotion, I work so much harder than they do” to observe my own reaction of anxiety and sadness about not having those things and ask instead, “Why do I feel like I should have those things?” “Do I need that to be happy?” “What is this comparison telling me about what I value?” “What would I have to give up to get those things?” “Which life do I want more?” “What do I have to be grateful for that others might be jealous of” “What goals do I have for where I want to go next and does this thing fit?”

The tricky thing about curiosity is it has to sit side-by-side with humility in order to fully engage. If I’m making a judgment call about someone else’s choices and reflecting them against my own, I am inwardly attaching a value to mine and theirs, and this can be both frustrating and a trap (we all know that what we see on TV and on social media has been curated directly to get us to consume more in order to measure up to some standard), and that trap can be carry a certain kind of defensiveness and/or arrogance: “my decisions are better than yours,” “My choices are the right choices.” But to choose curiosity, we have to suppress those desires to justify our own actions and defend our turf, and work to have a genuine interest in how and why others choose things for themselves and their own paths and goals and how they may or may not impact our own decisions and choices.

Asking the right questions, with a curious and open mind, can take us from what we see and the bars that others have set, into a space that is more unlimited—our own potential for change, and tuning in to our own values and goals. This sets our path, personally or professionally, on a direction that will take us to where we want to go. So next time you want to jump to judgment or feel inferior to someone else’s path, stop, observe, and choose openness and curiosity, and you might find the quiet voice inside you leads you forward in your unique path to success.