Curiosity Is Powerful. Where Is Yours Going?
The most valuable is the kind most people rarely explore
Prefer to listen? Here’s the audio version by Jon:
Here’s the thing with real curiosity: it’s dangerous.
It will change you.
The deeper inner kind will challenge your assumptions and beliefs, and dismantle unhelpful stories about you you’ve been carrying for years. If you use it consciously it’s one of the most powerful tools for self-development you have.
The problem is your curiosity can get easily stolen.
Outer curiosity has a hijacked version
External curiosity about understanding how the world works, learning new skills, exploring ideas is not the issue.
It’s the outer curiosity that grabs your attention and doesn’t let go.
It’s being drawn in by other people’s agendas. Screaming headlines, slick videos promising easy solutions, the latest and greatest TV shows, not to mention true-crime rabbit holes.
The thing is your information-seeking brain is doing exactly what it was built to do, just not for your benefit.
Psychologists call it the ‘information gap’ , the discomfort of noticing something missing between what you know and what you want to know. That gap makes you keep watching that latest addictive series even though it’s 1am on a work night.
That’s why the internal siren call of ‘Just one more episode…’ is so hard to resist. I know, I’ve been there!
The most effective way to deal with this isn’t resistance, it’s redirection.
When you feel the pull toward something that you know is going to distract you and eat your time, pause for ten seconds and then ask: what will I actually have after giving my time to this? Will I gain something useful or just be entertained?
If it’s clear it’s not helpful, point your attention at something more constructive.
I’ll be honest this won’t work every time but when it does you’re building your capacity to choose where you direct your attention.
The best thing to explore with curiosity? Your inner world.
Inner curiosity brings rich rewards
Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes. — Carl Jung
Inner curiosity points to something deeper in yourself. Your motives, emotions, patterns, assumptions, and the stories you repeat so automatically you’ve stopped noticing them.
The Difference?
Outer curiosity asks: What happened? What’s that? How does it work? What’s next?
Inner curiosity asks: What just happened in me? What did I assume? What am I trying to get or avoid?
Inner curiosity is less immediately rewarding than all those external things trying to grab your attention. But It’s much more valuable, if you are willing to explore.
It changes your understanding of who you are. It gives you a clearer, more honest, more informed understanding of yourself.
What changes when you turn it inward
Curiosity changes behaviour in ways that build over time.
When you’re in a genuinely curious state, your brain treats information as worth keeping. Curiosity signals to the brain that something matters. It means you can change.
More importantly for the choices you make: without inner curiosity, you’re more likely to repeat the same scripts on autopilot. The same relationships, the same destructive patterns. The same problems.
You live life on repeat.
An invitation
As an adult it took me a lot of personal work to awaken my inner curiosity again.
When I looked back at my school years I saw from the age of ten my curiosity was slowly crushed and replaced with facts, figures and logic.
I was a statistic of an education system not designed for the individual where compliance to the norm was expected. My curiosity wasn’t dead, it was just existing below the surface on life support. Waiting to be revived.
If you accept you have a right be curious about youself and actively start to explore it, you will regain a power many never use.
Here’s one of the best ways I know to help you reawaken inner curiosity.
A practical tool: the 5 Whys
When you notice yourself feeling frustrated, avoidant, impulse, repeating a behaviour you don’t understand, pause. Get curious about it.
Ask a why question and then dig deeper with the next ‘why’ based on your answer until you discover something important.
Repeat this up to 5 times or as many as you need.
For example you get a comment about your work from your boss that stung. Rather than criticise yourself use the technique:
Why did that comment bother me?
Because it felt dismissive.Why does that matter?
Because I want to be taken seriously.Why is that so important right now?
Because I don’t feel confident in what I’m doing.Why don’t I feel confident?
Because I’ve been avoiding something I know I need to tackle.Why have I been avoiding it?
Because I’m afraid that if I fully commit to doing it properly and it still doesn’t work, I’ll have run out of excuses.
You start with a comment and you end with an insight. A fear you’ve been carrying that’s been buried beneath the surface. Once you make that fear conscious you can work with it rather than let it unconsciously direct your behaviour.
This is a powerful technique so if gets a little too intense, change from ‘why’ to ‘what’ questions: not ‘Why am I like this?’ but ’What situations trigger this? What do they have in common?’
That helps shift from self judgement into a more balanced perspective.
If this landed, try this today:
Notice one reaction you’d normally dismiss and follow it inward instead of outward. Ask one honest question about it. Stay with what comes up.
Explore. Here are example questions to ask yourself with curiosity to explore your inner world:
What am I not saying that needs to be said?
What energised me today and what drained me?
What would have to change for this to be different?
I have no special talent. I am only passionately curious. — Albert Einstein
Good stuff, Jon.