How to Seize the Moment
Lessons from children
If you want to see what it means to seize the moment, look at the face of a child on Christmas morning. With all that eagerness and joyful anticipation, the moments before any gift has been opened are as delicious to a child as actually opening a present. What makes this possible?
Children live in the here and now. They don't get wrapped up in an unknown future or mired in past regrets. They take on the world with a fresh mind looking for answers and curious about new experiences.
This is how to seize the moment. Children love to learn and they keep their minds open. That kind of curiosity is contagious. Just watch children on Christmas morning. You will remember your own youth and maybe even feel some of that joy too.
Curiosity is contagious
Recently a good friend shared a photo of her son that captures that powerful moment of awakening curiosity.
Her husband had given her a dozen roses. She'd filled a jar with water, cut the flower stems and arranged the roses. Then she'd paused for a moment and enjoyed the smell with a big smile on her face. Not only was her husband watching; her one-year-old son was watching too.
What happened next was predictable. Anyone who has spent time with children knows what happened. As soon as the mother left the room, her toddler son climbed onto the table to smell the roses. He had seen his mother smile and he had to experience that happiness for himself.
He breathed in the roses and beamed with the full intensity of a young child. Snap. His parents were watching nearby and managed to capture a photo of the moment.
Awaken to the moment
We can learn so much from children and their curiosity. Entrepreneur Jim Rohn says that along with curiosity, children show us how important it is to experience excitement, faith, and trust.
But how do we bring that delight and curiosity to our experiences as adults? How can we awaken to the moment with the unrestrained joy of a child?
10 tips for stimulating curiosity
In his book, “The 15 Invaluable Laws of Growth”, John C. Maxwell gives us ten tips for stimulating our curiosity:
- Believe you can be curious. We don’t have to be children to let ourselves open to new thoughts and experiences.
- Have a beginner’s mindset. Even if it’s something you have done before, if you approach it with the mindset of a person just learning, you will be more open to the full experience.
- Make "why" your favorite word. The only bad question is the question you were embarrassed to ask. By the way, why is the sky blue?
- Spend time with other curious people. If you surround yourself with people who love to ask the difficult questions and embrace learning something new, you will help each other grow.
- Learn something new every day. It’s a simple goal that yields amazing results. In one year, you will have learned 365 things.
- Partake in the fruit of failure. As Winston Churchill said, "Success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm."
- Stop looking for the right answer. Narrow thinking kills curiosity. Try to not assume you know the answer. If you do, you may miss the question that matters the most.
- Get over yourself. Being authentically curious requires humility. You must be willing to risk looking naive or having a misconception corrected.
- Get out of the box. A curious person challenges all assumptions.
- Enjoy your life. Being curious is not merely an attitude. It is a way of life.
Share your curiosity; spread your curiosity
If you want to make other people pay attention to what you have to say, keep them curious. One way of doing that is to show yourself enjoying an experience. It doesn't matter what age we are. When we see someone having fun, we want to have fun too.
We are all unique
Although curiosity is a trait we all share, how we express that curiosity is individual. Our personality style has a big effect on what draws our attention and how we can keep ourselves engaged.
To learn more about your personality style, explore our personal growth solution called DISCover Your Positive Personality Style. Using the DISC model of human behaviour, we will generate a personalized report that outlines your strengths and provides tips on how to be more productive.
Call to Action
Unleash your curiosity by getting up every morning, excited for the day, looking forward to new experiences and surprises. Learn something new every day and ask lots of questions. Then and only then will you have captured that child-like mindset.
Your Friends,
UpCloseTeam
