Cultivate the Curiosity Superpower

This post was originally written as a guest post for a blog for vocal coaches and voice teachers.

You know those moments when your mind is suddenly and irrevocably opened up and everything is different from that point on?  I have had a handful of insights in recent years that are directly related to my relationship with curiosity, which I didn’t even know I had, or needed to have, previous to these moments. One impacted me so strongly as a teacher that it set into motion a whole new approach to my one-on-one work with vocalists, not to mention new ways of relating to myself as a performer, artist, and human being.

I was reading The Inner Game of Tennis about 7 years ago and the author (and tennis coach) Timothy Gallwey was talking about observing two different types of serves: one that hits the target and one that misses. Gallwey writes “you should free yourself from any emotional response to success or failure; simply know your goal and take objective interest in the results” (emphasis mine).

Wait, free ourselves from an emotional response to success??  I understand the notion of releasing a response to failure, but I thought we were supposed to get really excited when we did something well. Not only that, I thought I, as the teacher, was supposed to get really excited when my students did something well! The cheerleader role comes naturally to me, and I’ve always erred on the side of praise. And this is not all bad. But I read further and thought about this some more, and then I understood….

My own emotionally-charged reactions, even the ones we can label as “positive”, set up an expectation for the student. And expectation is a slippery slope. An expectation is a result of a judgment, and even a positive judgment can quickly turn into pressure and shut down the learning process. As the “guides” in the voice lesson, we are responsible for so much– for setting the tone, for directing the flow of the learning, even for interpreting what happens in the lesson. I began to realize that if I choose to come from a place of emotionally-detached curiosity when I’m teaching, and suspend my own judgments to a certain degree, then I give the student the space, and the permission, to do the same for themselves.  In my experience, this space is a magical space, an open space where anything is possible because nothing is expected. 

Of course, this doesn’t mean we don’t react positively when a challenge is met, a hurdle lept, a light-bulb electrified, or a powerful connection made. Our students need to feel seen and it’s important to acknowledge the “successes” in whatever way feels correct in that moment.  But staying in a state of curiosity and wonder actually helps us to integrate that growth more fully, more easily.  It helps us observe, in a light, detached way, what just worked so beautifully so that we can choose to do it more often. So that we can make it the new habit.  

Curiosity Vs. Criticism

Think about the way these two states of mind feel for a moment.  See if you can actually feel them in your body.  For me, curiosity feels light. Criticism feels heavy. Curiosity is open, expansive.  Criticism contracts, shuts down. Curiosity is neutral, interested.  Criticism is judging. 

When I have a student who really struggles with self-criticism (which is almost everyone at some point), I encourage them to substitute curiosity for criticism.  I pose the question: what if we’re simply curious about this?  What if we set the intention in this lesson to be curious about everything that happens, curious about how different sounds feel in your body, curious about the things that change those sounds?  This can take some practice but, like anything we practice, we can get really good at quickly interrupting criticism and substituting a childlike curiosity. 

One of my favorite ways to play with this idea is to suggest that we are both detectives– teacher and student– that’s our job, together in the lesson, to be curious about what we discover.  Detectives don’t see information as “right and wrong”, it’s just information.  What if we viewed our voices and our singing in the same way? What if we are simply collecting information and then we get to decide what to do with that information? As the teacher, taking on the role of detective helps me stay connected to the concept of Beginner’s Mind– I stay more open, more present, I see myself as the student as well as teacher, and the lesson is a creative process.  For the student, it is an opportunity to play a game, to be like a child, filled with wonder. Not to mention, as a part of this process we get to bust up some cultural myths and double standards around singing. If a gymnast falls off the balance beam when learning a complex new series of skills, do we judge the fall as “wrong” or shameful in any way? Of course not. Yet we do this with singing all the time.

Part of the power in applying this kind of light-hearted curiosity, this “detective with a magnifying glass’ approach to the voice is that this subject is typically so charged with emotion. So loaded. We know why this is, and it’s human and understandable; at the same time, it doesn’t really serve us when we are learning.  Releasing this emotional attachment is a game-changer– it is incredibly freeing. In The War of Art, Stephen Pressfield reminds us that “the pro stands at one remove from her instrument– meaning her person, her body, her voice, her talent…she assesses it coolly, impersonally, objectively” (emphasis mine). Again, objectivity is key.  And again, this takes practice, but, per usual, Pressfield is right. We can’t achieve at our highest level, or be our version of a “pro” if we are overly emotionally involved with our work.  

Like all superpower mindsets, the state of curiosity holds gifts that we can carry with us out of the voice lesson and into every area of our lives. Simply reminding our students  that they can choose their mindset, and giving them an opportunity to practice curiosity in their lessons can not only transform their relationships with their voices, but empower them to approach virtually any situation, relationship, or challenge from this place of wonder, openness, and possibility.