13 Steps To Unleashing Your Curiosity

I have written quit a lot recently about the importance of curiosity. Below are thirteen steps that can help you on your way to unleashing your own curiosity:

Develop the art of asking powerful, sometimes provocative, and compelling questions. Questions are invitations into the world of curiosity, and open-ended questions can lead to deep understanding and exploration.
Question ‘normal’ and people who say, ‘this is how we’ve always done it’ or ‘we’ve tried this before and it didn’t work’. Questions like: Why can’t we change how it’s done? What if our assumptions were not true? What if the opposite were true? What other alternatives would work? How might we do this?
Consider when you ask questions, are you asking because you already know the answer or are you really curious about what the other person’s answer could be?
Research a topic that interests you and drill down to get more understanding.
Provide the opportunity for people to share their curiosity with one another. Curiosity can be contagious and the more we have a learning and curious mindset enables others to share their excitement and discoveries.
Do things differently from time to time. For example: use a different way to travel to work, or work from a different location.
Identify what’s important to you, gain a deeper understanding of a topic that you are interested in and discover how you can apply it to your life.
Consider the list of low-interest, but necessary, activities in your typical day. Choose one of these dreary activities and, as you do it, search for any three novel or unexpected things about it.
When you talk to someone, learn as much as you can about that person and their perspectives. Give them space to really flesh out their ideas and ask follow-up questions to take their thinking further. Consider every conversation is an opportunity to develop your curiosity mindset and discover things that are though provoking.
Explore your environment and discover things you have never noticed before, that you either have ignored or taken for granted.
Get genuinely interested a few times a week in at least one of the many events encountered on a daily basis. Go deep on something you don’t know or haven’t thought about before.
In your relationships with others start to analyse your behaviour to find out what is working for you and what isn’t, then keep practising what is working and decreasing what isn’t working.
Think about what you add to the team conversation, are you extending the thinking or just agreeing with whatever everyone else says? Learn to develop your questioning muscle by asking questions about what is being said.