“It takes one a long time to become young.”~Pablo Picasso
“Youth is wasted on the young,” they say. Children are born into this world full of curiosity, excitement for learning, and joy and appreciation for the simple beauty in life. These are all attitudes that are even more beneficial as we grow older, and yet somehow we simply lose them.
I watch my children approach new problems and situations with a zest for figuring things out – and I realize how effective it might be if we brought these attitudes into our adulthood and our work lives. How much more successful would we all be if we viewed our challenges as opportunities to learn and grow? If we were able to look for and find the best in people and/or situations that drove us crazy? If we were simply curious at work when we encountered setbacks or resistance rather than judgmental – curious to learn why, how, and what if?
Many leadership tomes cite the importance of play, open-mindedness, and “thinking out of the box.” Some of that may seem trite, but at the heart of it is the idea of seeing things from a new and fresh perspective. The perspective of a five-year-old child. Perhaps we simply need to stop at times and question – “What would I do here if I were young? How would I see this if I let go of my adult-learned behavior and constraints?” Perhaps we simply need to enjoy the benefits of youth in our here and now.
Choose one problem, situation, or person that has been bothering you and simply get more curious. Ask why, how, why not, and what if.
If you enjoyed this post, you can read more like it in our book, The Power of Thoughtful Leadership: 101 Minutes To Being the Leader You Want To Be, available on Amazon.
Click here to receive The Thoughtful Leaders™ Blog posts via e-mail and receive a copy of “Ending Leadership Frenzy: 5 Steps to Becoming a More Thoughtful and Effective Leader.”
Photo Credit: Tumblr.com
Very good insight, if only more of us felt the freedom to act this way. As we grow older, we feel we need to be responsible and certain behaviors are the norm while others are not tolerated. That begins the cycle. One of my professors use to rail on the faults of Pythagorean Dualism. She believed it to be responsible for the narrow view most adults take on all things. As I have grown older I find that to be the case. In our effort to quickly categorize, we prejudge most situations causing us to remove the youthful inquisitive nature that served us so well as children. What a waste of significant learned behavior
Thank you for your comment, Dwight. Yes, it is true that we can lose our curiosity and inquisitiveness as adults. However, the good news is that we can always choose to take a different approach and tap into that part of ourselves to open up our thinking.
Lisa