Want To Upgrade Your Life? Get Curious

“What the heck do I do now…?”

That’s the question I asked myself the day after I walked away from my 9-5. I had made the decision to leave a 30-year corporate career to follow a passion. I woke up without an alarm for the first time in a long time, feeling excited and at the same time, uncertain. I walked into the living room, where my desk was, still wiping the sleep from my eyes. I stood there with my hands on my hips – no,  it didn’t feel like the Wonder Woman pose – and thought “Now what…?” Turns out, I had no idea! I had thought through why I was leaving, what I wanted to do once I left and how excited I was to start this new chapter of my life, but I had not thought through what I would do on the first day of the rest of my life.

I’m happy to say I have figured out at least some of it ! And I must be doing something right because one year in, I’m still as energized and excited about the future as I was when I first made the decision to leave. I have been building my coaching practice slowly but surely and have worked with some amazing individuals. They are all already high achievers, or high achievers in the making and have one thing in common: they are all curious. They ask themselves a lot of questions! There is tremendous power in asking questions.

I'm not a big fan of the phrase, "Curiosity killed the cat." It's often used to refer to people who are nosy or too interested in other people's business. But I think curiosity is a good thing. In fact, I think it's something we all need to embrace if we want to continuously grow and improve. It's the engine that drives us to learn and explore, and sometimes it can lead us down some pretty interesting paths. So today, I want to talk about the importance of curiosity – and how being curious can help us become better women.

Being Curious Is Life Changing

The benefits of being curious can’t be understated. In your own personal growth, it expands the mind and opens the door for self-exploration and learning more about others. By asking the right questions, I’ve become much clearer about who I am, what I want for my life and whom I want in my life. Having that clarity means I am more focused and minimize getting sidetracked.

When I got divorced, I started asking myself a lot of questions. See, after 10 years of marriage, I didn’t know who I was anymore. I had poured so much energy into my now-defunct marriage that I completely lost my identity. The beauty of that is that I had the opportunity to completely reinvent myself. Who did I want to become? Who could I become? What did I want? What didn’t I want? I got curious about my own life since I had the opportunity to create a brand new me! This started my journey into personal development and how I got my coaching certification six years ago. I discovered a new sense of purpose for myself which only grew stronger year after year and led me to retiring early from corporate.

As I am coaching and building a business, my whole life is now about asking questions! And I am loving this process of discovering, not just myself, but about my audience. I’m discovering what their needs, challenges and desires are and through these questions, I can help them create a better vision for themselves and pursue their own dreams.

When we get curious, we judge less. Approaching someone with the desire to learn about them carries a different energy. We are open, receptive, engaged AND we don’t have time to judge. We’re too busy learning and being present to judge them for who they are, who we think they should be and how we can make them fit into our “mold”, none of which is our job. You have better conversations with people, and you have way more fun! I liken it to a treasure hunt. What can I learn about this person today?

If you have children, how different could the conversations with your children be if you approached any interaction from a desire to learn rather than a desire to direct? If your son is really into video games and it’s causing friction and arguments, what would happen if you decided to learn more about why they love those video games so much? How do they make them feel? Have you ever asked your kids about what they think makes you a good parent and how you could be an even better parent? Asking questions is a great way to build bridges. Of course, you then need to match the tone with the question. You don’t want to come across as an interrogator, so finding your own style is just as important.

At work, when you’re working with teams, asking questions is critical in developing your leadership style and your own power of leadership. When you get to know your teams, you build trust and good will, which enables you to be a more effective manager. You can also identify where you are aligned and misaligned. Identifying these areas of miaslignment early in the relationship or at the start of the project prevents you from going too far down the rabbit whole before realizing that you need to recalibrate. People who are curious also tend to be more creative and better problem solvers because they are more willing to be open minded and think outside the box.

Being curious about various possibilities and asking questions contributed to my leaving of my job. I started wondering how different my life could be, what would my ideal life look like, what would I need to do to make that a reality and whose support I could enlist. All of this helped to solidify a vision and made the prospect of departure less difficult, and it helped me to build my confidence to believe I could take the step.

Here are some additional benefits of being curious and asking questions. You…

• Make others feel seen, heard and understood
• Can ask for help from those you need
• Increase your confidence
• See more possibilities for yourself
• Have more enthusiasm for the things you work on
• Elevate your personal energy and attract the right things into your life
• Find opportunities for connection, support and innovation
• Become less defensive
• Invite solutions you might not have thought of

Not All Questions Are the Same

There are two types of questions: empowering and disempowering questions. I want to take a moment to talk about disempowering questions and then I’ll share some empowering questions.

There is an art to asking the right questions and asking questions for the right reasons.

One thing to watch out for is asking questions for the purpose of procrastination. When you are unsure about how to proceed with a project for example, or there is something you know you need to do, but you’re really dreading it, asking questions is a great way to delay the inevitable. Ask me how I know…

One of the ways you can get unstuck and keep moving forward is by changing the question. Saying to yourself, “Ugh... I have to work on this thing I don’t want to do”, only prolongs the pain and gets you nowhere fast. Next time you feel you are procrastinating because of fear, uncertainty or any other emotion that could be holding you back, try asking, “What the best way this could turn out?”

Another type of question that gets you nowhere is any question that starts with “why” when it is asked in the context of why something may be happening to you. “Why did so-and-so do this? Why is this happening to me?” Why is it counterproductive? Because it puts you in a weak position, in a victim position. It takes away all your power. Depending on your tone of voice, it can also come across as judgmental. Whether or not that is how we intended it to be, that is how it is received. It is the quickest way to shut a conversation down. In coaching specifically, I seldom ask why questions for that very reason. It also doesn’t bring anything to my coaching style, which is to keep my clients moving forward and future focused. Asking “why” only brings them to the past, which is generally not needed when the objective is to keep moving forward.

On the flip side, asking “why” when you are trying to understand your own motivations is really great! One of my favorite exercises is asking why seven times to get to the heart of something. If I were to ask you to pick a verb that describes you and then ask “why”, it would take anywhere from 5 to7 why’s to get to the root of why that verb is meaningful to you. Putting your finger on that can be extremely valuable in understanding what makes you tick and what motivates you. And that gives you a tremendous amount of personal power.

When you are engaging with someone, you always want to ask open ended questions instead of closed questions. How are they different? Close ended questions are “yes” or “no” questions. They leave no room for discussion or engagement. On the other hand, open handed questions are questions that begin with “how”, “what”, “when” and “where”. I love these questions because they are thought provoking and often lead to new insights and discoveries.

In life and in coaching, asking questions is a dance. The first question is often the easiest. The gold comes out in asking follow-up questions. In coaching, people usually give the easy answers first. But I want them to think! I want them to dig deeper because they’ve likely already answered the easy questions. When you are getting to know someone, it’s the same principle. You ask the easy questions first. That’s where you start learning about each other and you start building trust.

Being curious about others is a great way to develop relationships, but there are many other things you can get curious about. You can get curious about things you don’t know. You can get curious about how to bring more novelty and excitement into your life or discover passions you didn’t know you had. For example, if you’re trying to lose weight, you could get curious about how to cook healthy meals, what types of exercises you can or should do, how much better you could feel if you were to lose those 20 pounds. These are all powerful motivators to help you in reaching your goal.

Now, being curious and asking questions is not the same. Being curious is a state of mind, a state of being, an approach to life. It implies being open and willing to learn. Asking questions is one of the means to satisfy your curiosity, but it is not the only way. If you are curious, there are many ways to develop that capability. You can take an online training class, go back to school to learn about a specific topic, surround yourself with people who have had different experiences or maybe read! The simple act of picking up a book can absolutely change your life. It is my go-to place when I want to learn about something. And of course, you can ask yourself the right questions.

Imagine you are considering leaving your job to pursue your passion. Here is a short list of powerful questions you could ask yourself:

• How do I know I am on my life’s path?
• How do I start living the life I want to live?
• How do I generate the energy I need to accomplish my dreams?
• What would it take for me to 5X my productivity every day?
• Who do I need to support myself with to thrive?
• What would my life feel like if I were more in the now?

Final Thoughts

My favorite benefit of being curious is that we become less "judgy". Over time, being curious can completely change your life, it can make a big difference in your career, in your interactions and in what you invite into your life.

So, in the spirit of being curious, how would your life change if you got in the habit of being curious and asking yourself better questions? Let me know! I’d love to hear from you!