Staying Curious when Things Get Hard

For the first few months of my daughter's life, my husband and I marveled at how calm and chill she was. Yes, marveled. If you know the personalities of either my husband or I, you'll understand why we were shocked!  

Fast forward a few more months, and her authentic personality emerged! What a fire cracker! She is purposeful and driven and curious and persistent (I know right? Go Olivia!!!) When she was about 15 months old, she loved dramatically pulling out all the grocery bags from one of our kitchen cupboards and climbing in! The cupboard is about as wide and long as she was at the time. Sooooo, once she would find herself in there, there wasn't really anywhere to go.

But she would dig. Literally.....with her little fingers. She would dig and dig and was completely unphased by my belief that she would not succeed. It was fascinating to watch. Every few minutes or so, she would come of the cupboard and close the door. She'd take a mental reset. She'd look at the cupboard. With an air of curiosity and wonder. She was thinking of how else to achieve her goal. But she wasn't frustrated. She was so on purpose and convinced of her goal! She'd sit for a moment or two and then go back in. And when, after a few attempts, she didn't achieve her ultimate goal, she'd come out and move on to something else. There would be no big melt down that this must not be the right goal. There were no tears of frustration because she must not be on the right path and was obviously unworthy of her goal.

She believed so strongly in her vision that rather than believe that her vision must be wrong because she hadn't yet achieved it, she chose to stay curious and take good care.

She'd simply closes up shop, focus on some other things that filled her cup (you know, playing with her favourite toys, breastfeeding and sleeping), and would try again the next day. What a girl!

I urge you to think about your own goals... the goals that other scoff at... the goals that seem unreachable... the goals that you've been working on for some time. And I suggest to you- stay curious. A curious mind is a learning mind. Will you give up? Or do you simply need a mental reset, an opportunity to fill your cup and the ability to stay curious?

This week's 'Curiosity Challenge': Do a mental reset this week with that goal you've been frustrated by and stay curious by honestly answering the following questions:

• What's most important to me right now?
• What do I need more of/less of right now in order to remain curious about my goal?
• What is one thing I can do this week to have those needs met?