I love completely random facts, there doesn’t have to be any obvious practical application for the information I’ve found/been given to provoke me to give a genuine “Really? That’s interesting” response.

One of my favourite completely random pieces of information is that false eyelashes were invented in 1916 by a silent movie director who wanted to make his female stars eyes look bigger on screen. I came across this information years ago at a time when I still worked in the pub and hospitality industry, I never dreamed that it would come in useful, I just thought it was interesting. However, a few weeks after I learnt this fact I was called upon to quickly come up with a tie-breaker question for a busy quiz night that gave all teams an equal chance.

I love learning new stuff, I can’t help it – I am naturally curious. It’s one of the things that got me to where I am today, I found something that interested me and I just got curious to find out more. Just like with the randomness of the false eyelashes, the opportunities that can arise to use the skills/ information etc that can be developed from being curious may not always be obvious before hand.

It was this curiosity over the weekend that led to me being at an event that was in effect eavesdropping on a rehearsal between the actor Patrick Stewart and the successful director, John Barton. They introduced the event by saying that they were going to play with the text and experiment with different ways of using it – they too were getting curious, with some incredible results.

There are lots of hidden benefits to this curiosity about stuff you find interesting. For me, it’s also the easy way of doing things. When I’m curious and interested about any topic then I’ll happily read, watch, listen or take action to find out what happens next and generally want to find out more. This means that the momentum often snowballs on a project very easily.

It can also be a great way to increase your confidence in an area – sometimes a lack of confidence is based around your own perception of your skills in any area, getting curious about developing those and having an accurate assessment of where you are can be a huge benefit.

What can you get curious about today? What would you love to find out more about?

If you are up for it I invite you to give yourself some time to play with this. Pick a time frame that fits with where you are at the moment and your life, it may be a couple of minutes, it may be a couple of hours, maybe a couple of days … you get the idea.

1. Pick a topic that interests you and decide that you are going to spend your allotted time getting curious about that topic.

One of the key parts to this is pick something that you find interesting – not something you think you “should” find interesting, something that you actually do. It doesn’t have to be an earth shattering, life-changing topic – we’re only playing 😉

If you are still wondering what to pick – if you were reading a magazine what articles would cause you to pause and read more – or if you were flicking through unlimited TV channels and a documentary/ behind the scenes/ day in a life of show caused you to stop, what would that topic be?

I wonder what would happen if you allowed yourself to get a bit more curious?

2. As you allow yourself to wonder and be curious about this topic notice what questions come up for you around this area….

Maybe it’s a “how do they do that” type question, or a “why does that happen”, it might even be “I wonder what that feels like” perhaps its something else entirely – make a note of the questions you are aware of and note them down.

3. From your list of questions notice which (if any of them), you want to go find out more about – it may be that you can do a quick search on the Internet, perhaps taking someone to lunch and asking them would find you the answers. Maybe it’s even trying something for yourself.

4. What would be a fun way of finding those answers out?

NB: Here’s the disclaimer bit, do check out the safety aspect and consequences of any action you choose to take – In the unlikely event you are curious about what it feels like to electrocuted I am not suggesting sticking your fingers in a plug socket to experience it for yourself – maybe find a second hand account and find the answer that way!

5. Pick an action that would be fun (yet safe!) to do, something that you are curious to see the results of, and go and play.

I’m curious to know about your experience playing with this and would love to hear how you get on.

This post was originally posted on my blog Your Changing Direction, which contains lots of pieces about general life improvement.