How Do You React to Small Challenges?
by Alan Pritt
I'm not talking about big challenges like becoming a millionaire, finding someone to marry or studying for a degree. I'm talking about the smaller challenges like coming across a sentence in a book you don't understand, getting confused over the plot in a movie, or not being able to understand a lyric in a song.
I'm talking about the kind of things you can get away with ignoring. Things you can bypass and neither you or anyone else will ever think of it again.
You think these things don't matter.
They do.
These small things, these subtle details, add up and then multiply. Over time, simple little habits like the way you react to such problems make dramatic differences to your intelligence.
We all react to different stimuli in different ways, but it all comes down to a basic choice: do you take on challenges or do you avoid them?
Generally, each of us has certain challenges we attempt to solve, and other challenges we avoid. We have our preferences. Some will take on challenges in sports but not in books. And for some, it will be the other way round. This is a big reason why some people seem naturally good at some tasks and others do not. Part of being a natural is a willingness to get stuck in and try.
For example, one of the things I try to solve is political arguments. I almost can't help stopping to think about them when I hear them. On the other hand, put me into a situation where I could perform social chitchat and I'll tend to react against it. There is no inborn reason for doing so, it's just habit. The result is I can talk about politics better than I can talk about the weather!
This kind of thing happens all over the place. A commonly expressed example is when you encounter a maths situation: do you work it out in your head first, or is your first instinct to head for the calculator?
Here are some other examples...
Is fear stopping you?
I always used to fear trying new things because I knew I would fail at them. People would laugh at me and it would be embarrassing!
Now I don't care because I'm laughing too. I know failure is an inevitable part of the learning process so I get on with it. I may not get it straight away, but I'll get it eventually.
When I think back, I can remember so many times when I sat back instead of getting involved. I wasted so many opportunities to learn something new. Fine I may find ballroom dancing unimportant, but if people are practicing while I'm there I may as well use the time to give it a go. If it's a choice between watching and getting involved, it's far better to get involved.
Is a lack of belief stopping you?
A big problem is that we often don't believe in our ability to perform a certain activity, so we don't try. What's the point of trying if we are only going to fail, right? It's much better to save ourselves the disappointment by giving up before we start.
But frequently this is a self-fulfilling prophecy. We don't think we can do something, so we don't try. Consequently we never get good at it. And the more we fall behind, the more our belief comes true.
I always used to be really bad at crossword puzzles; even really simple ones in the tabloid newspapers. I knew the words when I heard the answer, but I couldn't make the link myself. So I didn't try them because I knew I wouldn't be able to do them.
However, it's difficult to completely avoid crossword puzzles in my family. Especially since my family somehow got it into their head that I was good at them. They would ask my advice over and over again, and eventually I started giving answers. In the end my family's belief proved stronger than mine and I eventually got reasonably good at them.
Is effort stopping you?
Currently, I am trying to improve my reading ability. I'm a very good reader, but there are a few things I tend to gloss over if find them slightly tricky. In the past I thought it didn't matter, but now that I'm challenging myself in those weak areas, I'm finding it matters a lot.
Just last night, for example, I came to a part of the novel I was reading where it began to describe the layout of the streets. I almost skipped over it, but I caught myself and slowed down, allowing myself to picture the layout clearly in my head. I'm glad I did, because the next few chapters built on this description and I found I was able to imagine the subsequent scenes with much more clarity and consequently more understanding.
This morning I decided to spend a few minutes taking this understanding a stage further. The street in the book was actually a real street in London so I decided to check it on a map. I've done this a few times before, and every time it has added something to the novel. It has made it more real, and frequently the locations crop up again and again in new situations (other books, casual conversation, on the radio, etc).
Is your impatience stopping you?
I love singing along to music. I love it so much that I developed the habit of singing along before I'd spent time listening to the lyrics. I couldn't wait, so even on the first listen to a song I'd already be singing along; obviously making up my own lyrics as I went along. Consequently, half the songs I sung had lyrics I didn't understand!
I decided to take control of my impatience and actually listen to parts of songs I didn't know the lyrics to. Knowing the meaning of a song, of course, added an extra dimension to every song; but it also improves my singing.
We are often so eager to move on to the next stage, that we won't invest the time it takes to understand the current stage. This is false time-economy. In the long term you will actually make faster progress by slowing down.
Subtle changes
When you go to a bookstore, what kind of books do you search for? When you have a chance to learn something, do you give it a go or sit back and watch? How do you decide to spend your free time? When you day dream, do you have something to daydream about? If you see an unfamiliar word do you seek out its meaning?
Do you try to always live in your comfort zone, or just beyond it?
There are many distinctions to make that will seem trivial at first. But they are the beginning of a path full of richness. Lots of small things add up and then multiply into something huge.
Identify some of these tiny habits, and you will begin to see gradual improvements in your intelligence. Identify a few more and your improvements will be more noticeable and more impressive.
