Everybody thinks and believes that they are smart enough to handle different life situations. A lot of people believe that they are as smart as they are going to be and don’t believe that they need to continue to learn.
This belief typically comes from the IQ test.
Have you ever taken one?
I know I haven’t There’s no particular reason behind that I just haven’t ever felt the need.
But If you have ever taken an IQ test you would have been given a number as an answer. That number which is seemingly definitive is said to portray your inborn intelligence. Making it seem like no matte how high or low your number is it is a fixed quantity.
That’s simply not the case. A recent speech from learning expert and author Annie Murphy Paul recently explained in a speech. Intelligence, it turns out, is way more complicated than that and is not a fixed number.
However in order to become the best versions of ourselves we must continually grow and test ourselves.
Investing time and energy into our knowledge is never time wasted.
Here are a few ways that we can continue to make ourselves smarter from Inc.com
8 Ways To Make Yourself Smarter
SITUATIONS CAN MAKE US SMARTER.
These situations can be the physical conditions that learners experience by way of how much stress they’re under and how much sleep and exercise they get, and the mental conditions learners create for themselves by the levels of expertise and attention and motivation they’re able to achieve. Situational intelligence, in other words, is the only kind of intelligence there is.
OUR BELIEFS CAN MAKE US SMARTER.
Stanford psychologist Carol Dweck distinguishes two types of mindsets: the fixed mindset, or the belief that ability is fixed and unchanging, and the growth mindset, or the belief that abilities can be developed through learning and practice.
These beliefs matter because they influence how think about our own abilities, how we perceive the world around us, and how we act when faced with a challenge or with adversity.
OUR EXPERTISE CAN MAKE US SMARTER.
Experts don’t just know more, they know differently, in ways that allow them to think and act especially intelligently within their domain of expertise…
Expertise takes a long time to develop, of course, but it’s never too early–or too late–go deep in a subject area that interests us.
OUR ATTENTION CAN MAKE US SMARTER.
There are information-processing bottlenecks in the brain–everybody’s brain–that prevent us from paying attention to two things at the same time.
The state of focused attention is a very important internal situation that we must cultivate in order to fully express our intelligence.
OUR EMOTIONS CAN MAKE US SMARTER.
When we’re in a positive mood, for example, we tend to think more expansively and creatively.
When we feel anxious–for instance, when we’re about to take a dreaded math test–that anxiety uses up some of the working memory capacity we need to solve problems, leaving us, literally, with less intelligence.
THE TECHNOLOGY CAN MAKE US SMARTER.
The problem is that our devices so often make us dumber instead of smarter…
In order for tech to make ourselves smarter and not dumber, we need understand when to take full advantage of our devices, and when to put them away.
OUR BODIES CAN MAKE US SMARTER.
All the things that make the heart work better–good nutrition, adequate sleep, regular exercise, moderate stress–make the brain work better too.
OUR RELATIONSHIPS CAN MAKE US SMARTER.
If you have a spouse or significant other: it’s likely that one of you is “in charge” of remembering when the car needs to go in for inspection, while the other is “in charge” of remembering relatives’ birthdays.
This is called transactive memory, and it’s just one of the ways that relationships with others can make us smarter than we would be on our own… a feeling of belonging is critical to the full expression of our ability.
