Who was born with the ability to read and write, and the ability to do the extraordinary – who was born smart?
No one is actually born smart; we all started at point zero – from crawling, learning to talk, learning simple arithmetic, algebra, and communication, to our role today in the society as professionals in our different endeavours. But some people add some extra challenging efforts to advance what they’ve learned already, whilst others depend on and stick to only what they have learned, whether or not it gives them success or makes them smart.
Dr. Carol Dweck of Stanford University, California, a Researcher of human mindset for decades, has found that, most individuals are either of fixed-mindset or growth-mindset. The former focuses on the belief of only one’s innate resources - here, it is erroneously believed that one is either smart or not; thus, smartness is genetic. The latter, on the other hand, centres on developing the brain capacity and “talents” by facing challenges and difficult tasks. Thus, “capability and intelligence can be grown through effort, struggle, and failure”.
Truthfully and as has been confirmed by neurological Researchers, the brain really works like the muscle. The more you use it, the more it develops and the more difficult tasks you use it to resolve, the more extraordinarily better it becomes. This simply presupposes that failures only advance your intelligence, but always getting a thumb-up in the same activity, which you often do, only limits your mental horizon.
Applicably, the best way to survive in a complex society is to erase the fixed-mindset syndrome and get clothed with the growth-mindset approach. Students should not totally constrain themselves to class activities or to their fields of study. In the opposite direction, non-students should not also consider education a thing for “the privileged few” and therefore limit themselves to their own activities. Going beyond our capacity is the key to a better, meaningful future.
What people call intelligence or smartness obviously boils down to curiosity. How curious are you about some facts and skills? How curious are you about what you ought to have that you do not have? And how do you resolve them? You can’t resolve them if you are fixed-minded. You can’t resolve them if you allow the first few failures to tune you down. And you can’t resolve them if you sleep on your strengths or allow minor circumstances to defeat you.
So, stand out, speak out, take a tedious task, and take a special education on your brain. No tests and no exams. In fact, the more failures you have, the better you become. You can’t learn everything in school. It is the extra efforts you take in training yourself that truly helps to make you very outstanding in life.
No one is actually born smart – we all started at point zero. No one is smarter than you are and there is not a person, who can exactly do what you can do. Get more failures, get a better future!
If you have read this post to this extent, congratulations! You have a growth-mindset and the sky shall be your first step of success.
