Chapter 5 – Using Curiosity & Creativity
One thing that is very important is curiosity because it is the base of passion. You might have understandings that are blocking you from realizing what your true passion really is. Here are many ways you can use curiosity to help you determine what your true passion is so you can use it to be successful.
Making Your Mind Active
Curiosity helps create an active mind. When someone is curious, they always ask questions and seek for the answers. This causes their mind to be active most all the time. When you are curious and working the mind, you are making it stronger. Your brain is like a big muscle and by working it you are making it much stronger.
Open to New Ideas
Curiosity also allows you to see how things can be at different angles. When you are set in one way things are limited because your mind is not willing to accept a different solution. It is much like your life! If you don’t see your life becoming any more successful than it already is, then you won’t be. If you can open your eyes to new ideas about how things can be, then you are more willing to try them. The great thing about curiosity is that when ideas do come to your mind, they will be recognized also and not ignored. When you are not curious, you miss out on the important ideas because you haven’t prepared your mind to be open to them. This also means you must be open to suggestion. Many people offer input that you might not want to hear. This input could have been the one thing that was what you needed to do in your life. Be open to suggestion by allowing yourself to ask more questions and seek different answers.
Open to New Possibilities
When your mind is open to new suggestions, you will also see the bigger picture in almost every situation. Your world will be open to new worlds and possibilities because you will be curious. Normally you wouldn’t see these things like you see today. It takes the most curious mind to have the capability to look beyond the normality of life and see things hidden underneath the surface. These are worlds and possibilities that you can make happen. You have total control of your curious mind.
Excitement
If you are bored with your life, you are most likely not curious at all. Curiosity builds excitement in your life because you will want to see things. There will always be new things that attract your attention and an abundance of toys and gadgets that you enjoy too. When you are curious, you are adventurous and it is so much fun to add adventure to your life. This doesn’t mean you need to go on an African safari or a walk around Uganda. It means you need to look around you and see the things that are going on a little more than you normally do. Do a little research and find out why things tick. Be curious and open to new things rather than having the same boring routine every single day.
Developing Curiosity
If you consider yourself to be curious but you are in a routine of the same thing every day and basically bored with life, then you are not. You are boring. You can develop curiosity to help you become a more exciting person and see the life you can have. Once you become curious and you really want to know what your life will be like when you take your passions and make them happen, you will be more likely to make them happen.
Keeping an open mind is the best thing you can do when you are developing your curiosity. You have to be an open minded person. Work on seeing things from a different point of view. Think about different versions of things and how they could end up.
Another thing you need to do when you are developing your curiosity is to never take things for granted. Many people accept things for how they are. They never dig deeper and they lose their entire curiosity and excitement.
Many things are a really big deal and although it may seem simple to you, it is important. Your child may want to do something that seems so ridiculous. It is about the time spent, you should never take these things for granted because they may not be available to you later. These also include wasting time in your life watching television (Randy Gage calls it the idiot box) when you could be working toward your passions.
Constantly ask questions. As you are developing your curiosity, it is important to ask questions. Who cares what people think about you? You are working on you and you need to be curios. This will allow you to get beneath the surface of things. Ask about how things work and why people are friends of each other.
Find out as much as you can about everything. Not only are you working your brain but you are learning new things and developing an understanding also. You are learning about why people do the things they do. Although you might do something one way, people may choose to do it the other. This is the opening of your mind you need to do.
Never label something as boring. If you are asked to do something with someone else and you think it sounds drab, you need to get up and tackle it as if it is a lot of fun. Things are only boring that you make boring yourself. Labeling an activity or chore as boring completely closes the doors to something that might be your passion. In addition, you can think of ways to take that boring activity and make it fun.
Look at learning as something fun. There are many things about your passion you might need to learn. You might have put off your passion because it will require you to take a few courses. It is very common for people to think they are too old to learn new things and they don’t follow a passion because of this. You are never too old to learn new things. The best thing you can do is continue your learning by reading as much as you can and learning new things. This is a lesson I learn late in life, and that was towards the end of my university time at Makerere University Business School. How I wish I learnt that habit in my primary education time, I would be smarter. But hey, no time for regrets, I took the bull by its horns and it’s tremendously paid off.
You should never put a passion off because of learning. What you need to do is tackle the learning as a fun experience that is going to help you achieve a goal in the long run. Being curious is learning. You are in a lifelong class and learning new things every single day. So if you have to take a class or read a book to learn something new, tackle it with a new attitude of excitement and fun. You will learn much more than you would if you thought the learning was a burden.
Reading new things is another way to feed your curiosity and develop it. You might like to focus on just one thing but you should be open to as many different topics and things as possible when it comes to reading. This can help you build your curiosity even further. If you do find you like to focus on just one thing, then you might have found your passion.
Building Creativity
Do you think you are not a creative person? You actually might think you are creative and really not be at all. If you want to live out your passions and make them a reality, then you need to be creative. There are many ways you will need to creatively tackle barriers and make things happen. The more creative you are, the more successful you will be in your life. Here are a few ways you can build creativity in your life.
Make creativity a game in everything you do. When you come upon a circumstance, you should give yourself the rules. Think about the objectives and any obstacles or strategic constraints that might be a problem. The more creative you are with these answers, the better you are.
When you are creative you also have to set goals. Goals go with deadlines and you need to set a deadline with activities. When you attach a deadline with tasks it actually makes them more exciting. You also won’t procrastinate as much either. This applied to me when I was writing this book. The day I set a release date and posted it on my facebook profile, is the day I started spending sleepless night in order to complete it before the day!! Therefore, a deadline set against a goal kills procrastination.
Self expression is a very important aspect also. You need to find every opportunity to express yourself in a way that you can, in a creative fashion; not only in a creative fashion, but in every opportunity. When you look for opportunities to express yourself, you are being creative in the process. I remember there was a time a friend of mine invited me to participate in a talk show hosted on Urban TV, advising the youth on entrepreneurship. It’s something that most of my friends freaked out on, but nerve wrecking as it was, I took on the challenge anyway. And today, I look back to it in pride. Am not saying that television is my passion, but it confirmed to me that I could do anything to pass on my ideas to the world, to motivate! Expressing yourself can be in the way you display dinner on the plate. You might choose to dress up the meal with cranberries and garnishes. You may change the way you do a presentation at work and completely changing the style from the way your work does it. View every activity as a way to express yourself and be creative.
Allow more focus in your life. The best things you can do for yourself is eliminating distractions and noise when you focus on an activity. When you focus on an activity really hard you will see opportunities and qualities about it. If you really cannot pay attention to something, then it really is boring. Again, find ways to make it exciting.
When you are working on activities that seem like they are boring, then you should view them as smaller pieces of a bigger picture. You need to see the big picture of things and every aspect of an activity.
Walk around your home/ room.
If you are having a hard time figuring out what your true passion is, it may be sitting right in front of you. You may have collections of items like newspaper pullouts, magazines, hobbies you like to do on the weekends and more. Take a look around your home/ room and see if some of the decorations are a clue to what your true passion is. You might be surprised you have surrounded yourself with items and not even realized it. It’s a true story for me because I always found myself hanging pictures of beautiful destinations and nature places.