Welcome to ‘Out of Curiosity’
Welcome to the newsletter! Okay first off, I just want to celebrate you for following your curious instinct. All too often, I haven't. Instead, I've followed the fear centre in my brain, which tells me to focus 1000% on the tasks and goals ahead, to worry, to just get shit done. By the way, in my experience, this approach works REALLY well… until it doesn’t. Much more on that topic to come in future editions of this newsletter.
Now, I just need to be really up-front with you. If you are looking for ANSWERS in, you might be disappointed. Because I don’t have them. To quote the wise Brené Brown,
"The best, most transformational leaders don’t have all the answers. They just have great questions."
So each time this lands in your inbox, THAT is what you can expect I’ll be focusing on. I’ll be sharing with you the questions I’m asking – myself, my clients, the people I admire and learn from the most. The questions that I have observed to have the ability to shift our mindsets and energy levels, to fundamentally change our lives.
Last summer, my friend Jenny asked me: ‘What do you do for fun?’ I immediately (and ironically) found myself stressed in the knowledge that I didn’t have a good answer to this. And all the usual excuses aside – pandemic, responsibilities, etc. - I had a pit in my stomach because I knew I’d never had a good answer to this question. I’d never had a go-to hobby or a consistent way that I had fun and I’d always felt a bit of a failure for not being able to answer that question concisely and confidently.
What’s more, this question seemed to come up at a really annoying time. August was proving to be one of the least fun months in recent memory. We’ve all had one - the kind of month where a series of shitty occurrences seem to transpire in quick succession and create a negative momentum of its own. In this case, that shittiness took the forms of getting COVID, having to cancel a long-anticipated family trip, a close family member falling seriously ill and my basement flooding, just to name the highlights. I could barely remember what fun meant, let alone tell anyone how I made it happen in my life.
Never one to back down from a challenge (that’s not how Jenny meant it, but that’s how I took it!), I decided I would crack this question once and for all. I decided that my interim answer to this question was ‘trying new things’. And I would use that interim answer to figure out my correct and permanent answer if it killed me. You want fun? I’ll show you fun. NEW SEPTEMBER was born. I would try something new every day for a month and see what clues I could pick up about what I like to do for fun.
Ever the realist, and with a calendar full of the responsibilities and ambitions of an entrepreneur/mum/wife/friend/etc., I knew that these new things would need to vary in time/creativity commitment and complexity. So some days, I tried something simple like a new fruit, a new Peloton instructor or a new coffee spot. And some days, I was more adventurous. I tried cryotherapy (3 min in a room at -110C 🥶😳), a pottery class, building my own website. Heck, I even I got my first tattoo!! (This one actually took me a couple of months to work up the courage for but the idea was definitely born in New September.)
And after all of that…I STILL don’t have a clear and consistent answer to the original question! What I DO have however, is clarity on what happened as a result of asking it:
1) My focus shifted. Very quickly I noticed that the experiment became less about whether or not something was good or bad, if I liked the new thing or not. Instead, I became hooked on the micro-thrill of newness. The wonder and fun of the process.
2) I broke the cycle. The previous month had generated a negative momentum of sorts. All this newness and fun - or at least my focus on it - seemed to break that momentum somehow. My October was upbeat and the end of my 2021 was joyful and meaningful.
3) I made a big discovery. I realised that fun is not a nice-to-have for me. It's not something I want to allow myself only when I've completed everything else on the list. Far from it, for me, fun is a core value. Fun fuels me and I want to intentionally make time and space for it everyday. And when it happens spontaneously, no matter how big or small, I want to revel in it.
CURIOSITY PROMPTS:
I’m the kind of person who likes to carve out 30 min to journal on the questions that are coming up for me. Others like to go for a walk and contemplate. Still others might want to have a chat with a friend over a glass of wine. You do you. While you are at it, I invite you to consider the following questions:
What do you do for fun?
How does it make you feel? (Think: emotions, physically, mentally, spiritually.)
Where might you find more of these feelings?
What are you learning about yourself?
STILL CURIOUS? (Bonus Content)
This podcast really kicked my curiosity around fun into high gear.
FUN: What the hell is it and why do we need it? (We Can Do Hard Things with Glennon Doyle, 2021)
TIP: Finding time and space to explore these questions is a big barrier for a lot of us. What’s working for me: I plant a seed in my brain to give this question some thought and then I just let it go. If a thought occurs while I’m on-the-go, I leave myself a voice memo on my phone and the next time I gift myself some space and time for some intentional reflection, I listen to my voice memos, jot down my thoughts, and see what comes out.
WORK WITH ME
Are you ready to explore some big questions but not sure where to start? Learn more about what it means to partner with me through a life/career coaching engagement. Ready to find out if we are a good fit? Book a Curiosity Call with yours truly.
In all curiousness,
Joy
P.S. If/when the spirit ever moves you - always feel free to hit reply on this newsletter and let me know what’s coming up for you!
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