During my years in the corporate world, I worked for one company that was tackling a major culture overhaul. Among the many things that they wanted to change was bringing more curiosity to the workplace. In this corporate environment, the goal was to reduce judgment, defensiveness, and impatience and increase employees' openness to new ideas and foster a collaborative team environment. If you key in on those negative attributes, you might see where I'm going with this.
We all experience judgment, defensiveness, and impatience with others and ourselves. These moods are emotional signals that what we're experiencing is stressful. They are often a signal that what's in front of us or that what we are thinking is threatening. If you find yourself experiencing one of these negative moods, try getting to a place of curiosity. Ask yourself questions like: What are the facts in the situation right now? What are my assumptions about myself or someone else? What's possible as a next step? What's holding me back? What would I like to be different?
Curiosity is the first step toward getting to the root cause of your negative mood, stopping stress in its tracks, and getting back on track with what you're trying to achieve, whether it's being mindful in the moment, completing a work project with a colleague, or losing weight.