Curiosity is one of my favorite words ever — it is one of my core values. It helps me reframe and refocus when I am going through the muckiness of making a big decision brought on by something that hasn’t turned out the way that I had hoped in my businesses. Like this morning: I just got word about something that for a moment was deflating. Ugh. Why? Now what? I’m sure every one of you who owns your own business has those moments … maybe several times a day. But instead of staying in the down energy of that moment, how can you stop, breathe and ask a different question? How can you apply curiosity to the situation, to the circumstances, and come up with a reframe that may lead to something even better?
I just heard this teaching from my own coach this morning (yes, I too have my own coach): “It’s not the circumstances that cause our suffering. It’s our resistance to the fundamental uncertainty of our situations. Our discomfort arises from all of our efforts to put ground under our feet to realize our dream of constant okayness.” She was quoting from Pema Chodron’s book “Living Beautifully.”
And so with that in mind, using that core value of curiosity, I started asking questions like:
What are 5 other options that could result in the same outcome?
Am I truly indifferent about which option I want to pursue?
If I try each of these options, am I truly detached from the results?
What can I learn from the situation so that I can approach it differently next time?
These seem like such plain vanilla questions to ask, but my energy shifted just like that. Simply by moving from “oh no” energy to “huh, that’s interesting, what next?” energy I was able to quickly move into action. I have no idea what will happen now, but I have taken action. And at the end of the day, isn’t that what us small business owners have to do a gazillion times a day … keep taking action.
What one situation that you didn’t want to look at can you take action on today? Let me know if your energy around that situation feels different.