Psychology Explains How Curiosity Helps You Achieve Goals

Many people have big dreams and goals in life, but not everyone has the traits necessary to achieve them. If you’re trying to build some of those characteristics to heighten your chances of success, begin with curiosity.

Curiosity is a fascinating trait. It refers to a desire to find truth or secrets in everyday activities and live life. It makes you curious, interested, and easily engaged. It’s no wonder, then, that it may also be the key to your goals being fulfilled!

Here are six ways curiosity helps you achieve highly-ambitious goals.

1.    It Gives You A Sense Of Purpose

Curiosity makes you explore the world around you, allowing you to learn more about your opportunities, life possibilities, and general future. As a result, you’ll develop new hobbies and interests that may give you a sense of meaning and purpose in life.

Curiosity and purpose go hand-in-hand, and in an ideal situation, they’d be a never-ending cycle of positive thinking and forward momentum. When you’re passionate about something or feel like something gives you purpose, you’re more likely to become even more curious about it, and that builds your passion even further. It’s, for once, a positive form of a cycle!

Studies show that having a sense of purpose is incredibly good for your wellbeing, as it helps with your self-control and self-regulation, which are vital components of goal achievement. The more curious you are, the more compelling the world becomes, and the more meaning you may find in your endeavors and interests.

2.    It Makes You Work Better With Others

Achieving highly-ambitious goals is usually something you can’t do entirely alone. While the main effort and the responsibility for achievement are yours, you’ll often need many other elements to get to success. You’ll have to work with like-minded people, collaborate with others, and seek knowledge and wisdom from experts.

Many people with big dreams become very proud of them, which is fair, but they may take it to a weak point. Believing that you have to “go it alone” for the achievement to matter is simply untrue and very stubborn. By nature, human beings want to support and help each other, and everyone needs a little assistance sometimes!

Curiosity makes you a better team-player, thus allowing you to achieve your goals thanks to the support and aid from the people around you. Here’s how:

·         You’re Better At Collaborating

Have you ever heard of the rules of improv comedy? When responding to others, you have to say “yes, and” to keep up the flow of the collaborative improvisation, always building off the other person instead of shutting down their ideas. That’s what collaboration is all about. Curiosity makes it, so you naturally want to say “yes, and.” You want to explore new possibilities and build off others’ novel thoughts, making you a better team-player overall.

·         You’re Better At Forming Dialogue

When you’re curious, you are less likely to be judgmental or accusatory when you see someone doing something in a way you think is incorrect. You would, instead, be curious about how the other person thinks, and you can ask them about it politely and with genuine interest. Those people will be happy to engage in productive, positive, and meaningful dialogue with you to give you new ideas and open your mind while showing your trust in the other person’s process.

·         You’re A Better Leader

Working with others sometimes means working in a positive above them, as a leader or manager. When you have very ambitious goals, it’s only natural that at some point, you’ll wind up in such a position. The best leaders are those who don’t fool themselves into thinking they’re intellectually above their team. They’re curious! They’re interested, eager to understand their team, and are very welcoming and flexible when introducing new thoughts and ideas. This encourages a team to be more creative, so your curiosity drives them!

3.    It Boosts Performance

Curiosity has been known to boost performance in many different fields. No matter where your goals lie, it’s likely that being curious may be able to help. On the surface, here are some areas of performance that being naturally curious can boost:

·         Academic Achievement

When you’re curious, you’re likely to put more effort into learning about different subjects. Of your own volition, you’ll be more willing to study, remember lessons, and do projects for academic success. This carries forward into other areas of your life, too, according to studies.

·         Improved Participation

Curiosity can help you participate in activities in a learning environment with higher enjoyment and positive thinking. It increases your desire to learn, so you’re more eager to join things you may have previously found tedious or boring. Alternatively, that curiosity may make you want to participate to see what will happen or try it out.

·         Work Performance

Many people’s goals lie in their career paths. When you’re curious, you’ll be more interested in progressing in that career. According to research, you’ll be more involved, work harder, and engage more with your work, leading to improved performance.

4.    It Opens Your Mind

Few goals can be met without an open mind. The world’s reality is that it’s so much broader than a single human brain can comprehend without seeking to expand itself. The sooner you realize that the faster you’ll arrive at your goals. Curiosity can help significantly with that, and here’s how:

·         It Makes You Find Innovative Solutions

Being curious means, you’re willing to look everywhere to solve problems, which is a crucial skill for achieving goals. You’re able to find methods to overcome hurdles in unexpected but effective ways, and you’re willing to try new and surprising things to achieve that solution.

·         It Shows You Opportunities

The world is full of unlimited chances and doors, but most people ignore a good portion of them in favor of more conventional opportunities. The ability to see all the possibilities that others don’t deem worth pursuing is precious when you have highly-ambitious goals. Curiosity can open your mind to a world of doors to open, and you’ll be happy to try each one, even if it seems strange!

·         It Expands Your Bubble

No one naturally knows about everything, and most people’s knowledge is limited to their personal experiences or the experiences of those they’re closest to. This can hinder progress towards goals, as the most extensive plans often involve a need to be cultured. To learn about things foreign to you, curiosity helps to expand your bubble. You’ll want to explore other cultures, mindsets, and ideas that you’ve never had access to before. Instead of shunning the unfamiliar, you will heartily welcome it.

·         It Helps You Face Your Fears

Everyone has some fears in life, but these fears can stop you from moving forward towards highly-ambitious goals. Curiosity helps you face these fears by making you intrigued by the unknown wonders that may lie beyond your apprehension. You’ll feel spurred to take action, even if it’s difficult, all because you’re curious about what will happen if you do!

5.    It Makes You A Better Person Through Improvement

Highly-ambitious goals don’t need you to be the best person you can be, but it certainly does help. When you experience personal growth, you learn to tackle problems better and prevent predictable issues that may arise when you chase your dreams. Being a better person means that your old hang-ups can’t hold power over you as you progress.

Curiosity can help you become a better person by pushing you to chase down self-improvement. Here are some ways that it does this:

·         It Increases Your Self-Awareness

Being self-aware is a crucial part of positive social interaction and everyday lifestyle choices. If you’re not in tune with yourself and your behavior, you’re more likely to do things that harm others and yourself. Curiosity helps self-awareness because it forces you to keep asking questions. You’ll challenge yourself and your actions, always seeking to discover the truth behind them.

·         It Keeps You Humble

To improve, you have to recognize your weaknesses and know how much you have left to grow. Curiosity can help foster this humility, as you have to put aside your pride if you genuinely want to find out more about a subject or discover how you can be better.

·         It Makes You Mindful

Curious people are more in touch with the world around them. They are drawn in by seemingly innocuous or unimportant features in the present. Being curious means knowing how to stop and smell the roses, as those roses could hold all sorts of secrets that you desperately want to explore and uncover! This is a crucial feature of mindfulness, which is an important trait that allows you to live your best life in the current moment.

6.    It Boosts Positive Thinking

Few people can successfully meet highly-ambitious goals with pessimism. Positive thinking and grounded optimism are often crucial to making good progress. When you’re always thinking negatively, you can form self-fulfilling prophecies. It’s like that saying goes: whether you think you can or can’t, you’re right.

Research has long indicated that individuals with high levels of curiosity tend to be happier, more positive people. This is likely because:

They have lower levels of anxiety thanks to years of just going for itThey’re more satisfied with life as they tend to have fewer regretsHaving more novel experiences that make them feel better and happierThey learn more things and feel more accomplished as a resultThey have better social relationships and therefore have more social support

In other words, curiosity feeds positive thinking, which feeds curiosity again! The power of interest is such that it can form numerous healthy cycles that are easy to perpetuate, and optimism is just one way that it achieves this.

Final Thoughts On Some Ways Curiosity Helps You Achieve Highly-Ambitious Goals

They say that curiosity killed the cat, but few realize that this famous saying finishes with “but satisfaction brought it back.” As it turns out, curiosity is more likely to bring you back than metaphorically kill you. So go ahead and chase after your goals with zeal! You’ll find that your chances of success are heightened when you dare to ask questions and experiment.

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