FIVE THINGS SMART PEOPLE STRUGGLE WITH
Toheeb is one
of the smartest guys in the class back then in school. Since we graduated 2
years ago, he has been doing quite well in his career, but when he checks
Instagram, he sees guys he outperformed in school who are making more money and
achieving greater things than him.
Likewise, there some of
his colleagues at his work place who are doing better than him.
All these makes him wonder
with no choice than to ask himself, “What Am I Doing
Wrong”?
You can relate right? You
might relate to Toheeb yourself,
or have a colleague or friend who struggles with the same feelings.
The truth is, raw
intelligence is undoubtedly a huge asset, but it is not everything.
And sometimes, when intellectually gifted people don’t achieve as much as they
would like to,
it’s because they are
indirectly under-rating themselves.
If you’re in this
situation, the good news is that when you understand these things that are
hindering your success as an intelligent person,
you can turn them around.
Below Are five
Things Smart People Particularly Struggle With That Is Preventing
Them From
Making It In Life:-
1. Smart People
Don’t Value Other Skills, Like Relationship Building, And Over-concentrate On
Intellect
2. Teamwork Can Be
Frustrating For Very Smart People
3. Smart People Often Attach
A Lot Of Their Self-esteem To Being Smart, Which Can Decrease Their Hustling
Spirit
4. Smart People Get Bored
Easily
5. Smart People Sometimes See In-depth Thinking As The Solution To Every
Problem
Very smart people
sometimes are always over confident of their success in life because of their
intellect, so they don’t see other soft skills as important.
For instance, some smart
people don’t always feel the need to go out clubbing or chill out, they prefer
to stay indoor working or watching educative programmes forgetting that going
out chilling relaxes
the brain and also
increases your chances of meeting people who will offer you bigger contracts.
They grow up being told
they’re smart, and during their schooling, academic success comes more easily
to them than to others.
It’s easy to understand
why, as a result, they would continue to focus on their intellect as adults and
other things like building strong relationships with people becomes meaningless
to them.
In life, you need more
than raw intelligence to get ahead. And only focusing on your greatest
strength, rather than also addressing your weaknesses, tends to be
self-destructive.
The
Solution: Use your
strengths to overcome your weaknesses. If you’re good at learning you can
simply learn the skills that don’t come as naturally to you.
Learn how to talk to
people, relate with others and developing positive attitude. For instance, identify
three specific workplace diplomacy behaviours that would improve your success
in that area. You can be
smart buy your attitude makes you smarter!
Smart people
grasps idea quickly and has
high standards for their own performances. This makes it difficult for them
when working with others who process information and grab ideas slowly.
This frustration develop
early in smart kids they feel other slow learners are holding them back and as
a result, they have problem with team work.
Some students will put it
upon themselves to handle group assignments involving 10 people by themselves
all because they feel they can do it all better.
Smart people also
sometimes find it difficult to delegate because of a sense they can do a task
better (regardless of whether this is actually true.) This is especially likely
for those who have a perfectionist streak.
If you understand the
concept of associative thinking you will know that no idea is entirely bad no
matter how useless they appear. You can’t be smart in everything, some people
know more than you in some situations.
The
Solution: Be
self-compassionate about your internal reactions and understand where they come
from, but also learn to genuinely appreciate what people of different minds
bring to a team.
If a lot of your self-esteem rests
on your intelligence, it can be very difficult to be in situations that
threatens your smartness.
Smart people always avoid taking risk that will put them
situation of getting criticized and as such they are always contented the
little success they are getting.
Any situation that
triggers feeling not- smart is experienced as highly threatening. The smart
person may even seek to avoid those situations, which ultimately holds the
person back.
For instance, I have a
secondary school mate who is a naturally gifted singer but won’t go into music
because he feels the chance of making it in music in Nigeria is a low. That’s
fear of failure.
The Solution: Take an objective view of the benefits of
working with people who are, in some respects, smarter than you.
If you’re surrounding
yourself with smart people, you’re doing something right. Remember, iron
sharpens iron.
Develop relationships
with people who you trust to give you helpful constructive feedback. The more
you become accustomed to receiving criticisms as feedbacks from people who
believe in your overall talents and capacities, the easier it will become.
If you’re smart, curious,
and have a love of learning,
you might find yourself loosing interest quickly in anything once you’ve learnt
it.
This is why some people,
after learning graphics design instead of focusing on it so that can be cashing
out steady, they move to learning web-designs and after some months of getting
bored with codes, they want to start learning video editing again.
The everyday execution
side of one thing might bore you, and you’d rather constantly be learning new
different things.
As a result, finding a
niche and repeating the same formula might seem too boring or unchallenging to
you as a smart person
The Solution: Instead of attempting dramatic change, decide on
something related to what you’re currently into, learn it and be using it to
break the boredom.
For instance, if you’re
a graphics designer, you can learn photography so that when you get bored
designing, you can go out to take some beautiful photos, then come back to
design.
Additionally, make sure
you’re learning across the various domains of your life, including your work,
hobbies, physical fitness, understanding yourself and so on.
Intelligent
people are used to
succeeding through their thinking skills, but in most cases overlook when a
different approach would be more beneficial.
For example, the smart
person might attack every situation by trying to think it to death,
over-researching every decision and ruminating over every mistake when other
approaches geared towards coming up with solutions would be more fruitful.
The Solution: Notice when you’re thinking too much. Consider
when strategies other than thinking are more likely to result in success.
Experiment with taking
breaks to get unstuck, and allow yourself to learn by doing something instead
of exhaustive advance research.
Expand your range of
skills for getting solutions so that you’re not the person who sees every
problem as a nail because their only tool is a hammer.
If you can relate to any
of the points above, do not judge yourself or feel shameful about it, know that
you can turn them around by the tactical and practical solutions we have
highlighted.
Copyright:
Brownzay
