A Growth Mindset for Curiosity

Unfortunately, healthy dialogue is not something that comes naturally. I wish we all could have learned how to do it in kindergarten. Dialogue leans heavily on our ability to be curious- something that can grow with practice.

 We have plenty of models for unhealthy ways of talking to each other in our extremely polarized culture. We quickly go defensive when we talk about topics that divide. We categorize people into “us” and “them”. We don’t know how to handle differences.  A lack of curiosity can cause us to fill our lives with people who look and think like us.

Cultivating curiosity can help us build the bridges that connect us.

 Here are five ways to grow your curiosity:

1.  Be humble about all that you don’t know. Our egos get in the way and throws a smothering blanket on curiosity.
   
2. Seek opportunities to spend time with people who are different from you. My husband joined a group of people who enjoy powered paragliding. Its members have vastly different life experiences and different political points of view. He has an opportunity to listen and ask questions. Intentionally going to differing podcasts, books, social media connections, and news sources can also help get us out of an echo chamber.
3. If someone agrees to talk with you, communicate your openness and curiosity with your body language. Lean forward. Uncross your arms and legs. Intentionally open your hands and put them where they can be seen. Pay attention. Don’t interrupt.
4. Suspend judgement. I have a friend who exemplifies this approach by quietly observing and by non-coercive conversation. He says, “Everyone I meet is my teacher. Every place I go is my university.”
5. Hang out with others who model curiosity. Spend time in the presence of open-minded learners who seek to understand rather than those with the ego and the answers. Look for the people asking open-ended questions rather than jumping to judgements.

How are you growing curiosity to enlarge the space to respect other ways of being, doing, thinking, and believing?