Episode 5: How the power of curiosity can change your life
Experts discuss how curiosity can challenge bad habits, introduce you to more restful hobbies, and keep your mind and body open to new experiences. Learn tools to harness the power of curiosity in this episode.
Transcript
[MUSIC PLAYING]
My biggest wish for my future self, both physically and mentally, is just to be able to be more zen, to find my place of peace and a sanctuary wherever I am
and to just not overthink and not overwork and just lean into life a little more. That's what I hope I find as I get older.
INTERPRETER: So my number one advice for living your healthiest life is to always chase your passion or your dream.
Whatever your special gift is, your talent, if you found it, chase it and do it.
Whether it's a hobby or a living, it will change your life and keep you happy. And it'll help you achieve your dreams.
Staying curious is the key to living a long and happy life. First of all, what do you think about this? Do you agree? Do you not?
I love this. I am a huge fan and advocate of being curious.
I've always said, the minute somebody says that they know something, run in the opposite direction.
I really do feel like we're all having this human experience. And part of the magic of life is to be
able to stay curious and ask questions and build relationships and join communities and learn
information. I mean, it really is what keeps us in an open state as opposed to the moment that you know something
and you're committed to a belief system, you do create walls around you because you're so focused on the knowledge or what you know.
So it can keep you from learning something new or having a different perspective. For me, I've always been a big fan
of being open, being curious, and being creative. And I really attribute a lot of my life's journey
to being curious. If I wasn't a curious 15-year-old growing up in East LA during the LA riots, I
would have never achieved the level of accomplishment I have now. So I love this.
I think more of us need to be curious. More of us need to be open. And being curious never goes out of style.
From a nutritionist perspective, I always want my patients to be curious. I tell people, branch out. Don't be afraid to try new foods.
And it's a fantastic way to expand your palate. Self-improvement means to me that you feel safe enough
to speak the truth to your purpose and intention and the truth of who you are and that you're wanting to deepen
into that realization of yourself and how you want to show up in the world and how you want to connect with others.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
Often some of these habits that we're trying to change get triggered from having a really stressful day or we've come home and we're exhausted
and our brain just says, you know, screw it. I'm just going to do my old habits. I eating healthy would be good for me, but I'm just going to order out.
These can be great opportunities for us to bring curiosity in and ask ourselves, what do I truly need right now versus what do I want?
And that curiosity can help us open up and take care for ourselves and say, look, yes, you did have a tough day.
Is eating a pint of ice cream actually caring? Is that self-care or is that self-indulgence?
And so the curiosity can help us notice where we might be moving, which is often, say, if we're a stress eater toward the refrigerator
or the freezer, and pause and just say, oh, there's that habit again. Is this really self-care?
And be curious. And even if we do it, care for ourselves, it's like, OK, what can I learn from that?
Can I lean into that? Can that obstacle become the way in terms of the way that I can learn how my mind works
and then eventually learn how to work with my mind. Curiosity is a very energizing kind
of secret to full engagement in the world.
If we're curious. We are always learning. We're looking to learn. We're taking in new information.
We're stimulated. You get out of boredom. Nothing is complacent. It's like there's endless amounts of things to learn.
And if we consider ourselves lifelong learners, there's always something to get excited about. Learning is fun.
Learning is expansive. We can do things with knowledge. If you can identify the way you learn best
and then that's what you do, it's a highly efficient way to take in new information, to indulge your curiosity
and really move forward toward whatever skill set you're trying to master. Lots of people want time to learn,
wish they had more time to learn, more time to read, more time for hobbies,
more time to do stimulating things that enrich them. The question is, does a hobby actually
make the nature of all the rest of your time more efficient or more effective? And the answer to that is 100% yes,
that the addition of a hobby into an already packed schedule actually has the effect of making
you more efficient in all the other things you're doing. Science has proven that. Studies have proven that.
So find the thing that brings you joy. [MUSIC PLAYING]
Curiosity really is a source of motivation that can get us through all different stages of our life.
What research finds is that as people go through their life, at first they're looking for information. They want to learn the tools of their trade
so that they can have the fabulous career that they hoped for. But as we go through life, that sort of shifts. That want for information, for knowledge,
and for power sort of dies off. And instead, we prioritize emotional goals, interpersonal social contacts.
That's where we find happiness. And what curiosity can do is help us at both stages of that spectrum.
Curiosity and keeping an open mind, ridding ourselves of that word "failure," of the fear of failure, that's what sets us back or holds us
back from trying out new spaces. Curiosity comes when we shed ourselves
of feelings of embarrassment. Yeah, we might feel embarrassed if this opportunity for advancement falls short of our expectations
or if this conversation goes nowhere. We might have a great conversation through it. We might have a good story to share later on. Or we might actually learn something really valuable
that expands our self-concept, what we think of who we are and what's possible for ourselves in the future.
I think people have the wrong idea about self-esteem. A lot of people have the wrong idea about self-esteem. Often we're chasing it or we think
we need to curate it in other people. We want to cultivate it in our children. We want to bring it out in our employees. We want to support our friends' positive self-esteem
and sense of themselves. But what that does when we focus on just cultivating that positive sense of self is that it
makes us afraid to face an obstacle because we think it's diagnostic of our inabilities. It makes us afraid to try new things.
It reduces our curiosity because we're afraid that it might pull us down or pull other people down.
So instead of shooting for positive self-regard, we might try to fold in a little bit of a search for truth.
If I learn where my weaknesses are, I try to not tell myself that this is the space that I
shouldn't enter, that this means I'm not this kind of person. Instead it means, hey, here's where you should spend your time.
Here's where you can invest resources to grow. And rather than being afraid of receiving that feedback that may hurt a little bit in the moment, we can celebrate it.
We can thank the people who give us that kind of information because it can help us direct our efforts most effectively.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
Take a deep breath in. Mindset is everything. I'm not 90 for nothing. Small steps, one motion.
happiness
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