How Curiosity Builds Confidence When Life Gets Hard

Curiosity helps you stay open, reduce judgment, and find your next best move under pressure.

For this conversation on The Audacious Living Podcast, I sat down with Nathalie Plamondon-Thomas, and what started as a discussion about confidence quickly turned into something deeper: the stories we tell ourselves and the power of curiosity to change them.

You can check out the full conversation here.

The Story In Your Head Runs The Show

What caught me off guard was how simple the lesson actually was.

The event wasn't what shaped Nathalie's confidence.

The story did.

That idea has been showing up in my own life more often than I'd like to admit.

A delayed response becomes rejection.

A mistake becomes failure.

A setback becomes proof that we're not good enough.

The mind can build an entire courtroom case with very little evidence.

Before long, we've attached emotions to a conclusion that was never fully investigated.

Nathalie's experience reminds us that confidence isn't always about changing circumstances.

Sometimes it's about questioning our interpretation of them.

And that shift can change everything.

Curiosity Is The Exit Door

What if the goal isn't confidence first?

What if the goal is curiosity?

This was one of my favorite parts of our conversation.

Nathalie explained that when we're stuck in emotional loops, curiosity helps us move from reaction to reflection. Instead of asking, "Why is this happening to me?" we begin asking, "What am I learning here?"

That question sounds small.

It isn't.

Curiosity creates space.

Space between the event and the emotion.

Space between the trigger and the response.

Space between who you are today and who you're becoming.

The beautiful thing about curiosity is that it doesn't require certainty.

You don't have to know the answer.

You only need to remain open long enough to discover it.

Sometimes The Problem Isn't The Problem

Here's where the conversation became especially interesting.

Nathalie talked about limiting beliefs and how many of them were created years ago by versions of ourselves that no longer exist.

As she described that process, I immediately thought about my old "Sunday shoes" story.

Growing up, I had shoes that could only be worn on Sundays.

Years later, I realized I was still treating them that way.

Nothing was stopping me from wearing them on a Tuesday.

Except the belief.

That realization applies to far more than footwear.

Many of us are still following rules we created decades ago.

Rules about success.

Rules about worthiness.

Rules about what we're capable of.

Rules that may have protected us once but now keep us small.

Curiosity gives us permission to revisit those rules.

And occasionally retire them.

Lessons For Living Audaciously

There's another layer to all of this.

Audacity isn't about becoming fearless.

It's about remaining open when fear shows up.

When life gets difficult, most people look for certainty.

But certainty is often unavailable.

Curiosity, however, is always available.

You can ask:

What am I learning?

What else could be true?

What am I assuming?

What perspective haven't I considered?

What might this experience be preparing me for?

Those questions don't eliminate challenges.

They help you navigate them.

And sometimes the next best move doesn't come from confidence.

Sometimes confidence arrives because you stayed curious long enough to find it.

Closing

The next time life hands you a story that feels heavy, pause before you believe it.

You may not need a new reality.

You may simply need a better question..