From Struggle to Insight: How Curiosity Shapes Our Problem-Solving

Curiosity changes how we approach things.

It opens us up to a greater variety of options, pathways - outcomes.

Consider something in your life, a pattern that’s undesirable and you wish to change. This can be anything.

Irrelevant to whether it’s causing physical, psychological or spiritual pain, if there’s enough pain, we can be motivated to investigate and resolve it.

Here’s the key.

In this moment, the way we approach that issue matters.

If we’re fixated on just getting rid of the problem, or only to the other side of it, we can limit ourselves to what we get out of the equation.

In contrast, if we allow ourselves to be curious as to why it’s happening, and perhaps what could we learn out of it, we may find this opens up the space to recognise more.

If we consider this from a nervous system’s response, it kind of makes sense.

If we view a problem we’re having as a big and hard thing to resolve, we subconsciously might start preparing ourselves to wrestle or ‘fight’ with the issue, or avoid it altogether.

This builds pressure, literal constriction, and takes away our higher vantage points to see our way through.

Hopefully we don’t feel like it’s all too big and shut down altogether, feeling hopeless.

On the other side.

If we faced the same issue, and leaned more into the question - I wonder why this is happening? We might recognise there’s something valuable for us, to be learnt.

This isn’t to say that all issues are just easily resolved with curiosity.

But an invitation to consider using more of it. So next time, there’s less fight and more flow with what you’re up against.