Intelligence can be improved by the day after tomorrow.
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Editor’s note: Is cleverness born? no. Intelligence can also be acquired, and intelligence is not the same as IQ. Intelligence includes all aspects of mental intelligence, such as reasoning ability, thinking ability, planning ability, learning ability and problem solving ability, etc. With the passage of time and the growth and maturity of the mind, we can think more clearly and independently. The study found that intelligence can be improved through training, especially when these three things are often done: “Break through self-limitation”, “Pursue novelty” and “Enrich the inner world”. This article is translated from Medium, the original title is “3 Smart Things You Can Do to Upgrade Your Intellect”, hope to inspire you.
Photo source: Photo by Avel Chuklanov on Unsplash
Smart people seem to be able to do very well in all aspects-they can face the challenges in life, think about how to deal with them, successfully solve problems, and become a winner in life .
Intelligence includes all kinds of mental abilities, such as reasoning ability, planning ability, problem solving ability, abstract thinking ability, ability to learn new things, understand new information and selectively retain the information ability you need, and then use these New knowledge as a basis to solve other problems.
The good news is that as time goes on, we can think more and more clearly, and go beyond the results of the first stage of thinking to solve problems that exceed our intellectual level. Shane Parish wrote: “The ability to decompose a problem into second, third and fourth order, or we can simply call it second order thinking, is a powerful tool that can strengthen our thinking . “
Jaeggi, Buschkuehl, Jonides, and Perrig published a study in 2018 “Improving Fluid Intelligence through Working Memory Training” (Fluid Intelligence) with Training on Working Memory) proves that training can greatly improve our intelligence.
No matter what you do or hope to achieve, in your mind, your needs for yourself have never really changed. The sharper your thinking, the easier it is to make wise choices and better judgments. Anyone can improve their cognitive ability, no matter what starting level you are in.
1. Break through self-restriction
All your achievements stem from the belief in your heart. Belief is also a kind of knowledge that you have-it can help you improve your intelligence, and it can also prevent you from growing.
Whether you feel that you are not smart enough or that you are not good at socializing, these beliefs will be deeply rooted in your heart, because there is a psychological principle called “belief perseverance”.
Once you have formed a belief in your heart and believe that something is the only truth-you will filter out the evidence contrary to it, and turn to any evidence that enhances this belief.
The idea of self-limitation will always hinder your growth until you find the courage to face them and solve the inherent mentality that these ideas have formed for you.
In order to improve your intelligence and improve your mentality about survival and life, take a moment to think about which beliefs may be potential factors limiting your ability to improve intelligence-maybe you are smarter and more capable than you think.
The belief about “who are you” will deeply affect your future. What better options can help you improve your intelligence? After a year, three years, or even five years, ask yourself, “If I keep this faith, what price will I pay?” If you doubt whether you have the ability to improve your career , You can improve your skills by growing up and holding yourself accountable.
Through a process of systematically questioning the factual basis of your self-limiting beliefs, you can identify them and forget them, in order to relearn better principles, values, and thought processes, which can help you grow into a more good person.
2. Smart people often pursue novelty
Albert Einstein once said: “One should not pursue toleranceEasy to achieve goals. “A person must cultivate an instinct consciousness, that is, the ability to only reach the goal set in his heart by giving his best efforts.”
Source: Photo by Brooke Cagle on Unsplash
Einstein is not a neurologist, but he knows how to optimize his self-awareness. In essence, those things that will never kill you will only make you smarter and stronger.
In life, we are either making progress or being mediocre and degenerate. The only way to keep the brain sharp and active is to constantly receive new knowledge. Smart people improve their knowledge and skills by maintaining an internal motivation. When you master a special skill, you will want to challenge yourself further. After the challenge is successful, then you will continue to go to the next level, so that continuous challenges allow you to continuously improve. Because this will force your brain to work harder-so that you can fully expand your intelligence.
When learning new things, the brain consumes a lot of energy in the body. When you try to learn a new knowledge or improve a skill, this is actually challenging your brain to make it better connect with new things and new knowledge by forming new perception patterns. But once you have mastered a skill, this cognitive growth rate will slow down, because at this moment your brain has become very efficient in learning this skill.
“You want to be in a state of continued slight discomfort, struggling to achieve what you want to do, as Einstein mentioned in his introduction. It can be said that this will make Your brain stays alert. ” Andrea Kuszewski, the author of Scientific American, wrote.
Once your brain understands certain things or knowledge, and is very good at it, then the brain isLearners ’knowledge does not need to be so laborious, so cognitive energy and glucose are used elsewhere. In order to improve your intelligence or build better connections, you should constantly urge yourself to keep your brain in a learning mode and to increase cognitive abilities at all times.
Let yourself touch or listen to many different opinions and ideas, and access multiple sources of information. Make the most of your free time, such as listening to a new book, listening to podcasts or audio books. This will make your brain more focused and make it easier for you to become smarter.
You can also improve your intelligence through practice. Reading can accumulate knowledge, but it ’s shallow on paper, and the knowledge you learn can be better understood and digested through practical actions, which can help you accumulate skills better. This may be an old saying, because experience is the best teacher, so do n’t be afraid to invest your time in learning, carry out some interesting personal projects, do something creatively, or build something, etc.
More production, less consumption-learning from creation. For example, start writing, start writing. When you study, you can increase your knowledge. As you write, you will expand and improve your knowledge.
Seeking novelty. A genius like Einstein has acquired skills in many different fields. We like to call him a polymath, but this is no coincidence. Smart people constantly look for novel activities, learn a new field, and promote themselves.
“When you are pursuing novel things and novel knowledge, your brain nerves will take many actions. First, you create new synaptic connections in each new activity, and these connections are based on each other. , Which in turn will increase your nerve activity and create more connections with your synapses to build on the learning of new things-learning is happening, “Andrei Kushevsky said.
3. Enrich your inner world
Reading and literacy skills seem to be related to intelligence. Studies have shown that reading not only helps improve intelligence (the ability to solve problems, understand things and discover meaningful patterns), but also helps improve language comprehension and emotional intelligence.
The study found that the benefits of reading go far beyond understanding an article, a paragraph, or a specific topic. The author of “What Reading Does for the Mind” writes: “The cognitive results of reading go far beyond the reading content itself, which is to understand the meaning of a particular paragraph. In addition, these results are in Essentially, they complement each other and grow exponentially. As they accumulate over time — spiraling up or down — they have a profound effect on the development of a wide range of cognitive abilities. ”
People who read a lot not only improve their language intelligence, but also increaseThe area for thinking and learning new information.
Source: Photo by Thought Catalog on Unsplash
Roberto Bolaño once said, “Reading is like thinking, like praying, like chatting with friends, like expressing your views, like listening to other people ’s ideas, like listening to music, like watching the landscape, It ’s like walking on the beach. “
Your brain thinking jumps with the text on the book-depending on the type of material you are reading, it is growing, changing, establishing new connections and forming different patterns. According to the ongoing research on the science of spoken and written language in Haskins Laboratories, reading is different from watching or listening to electronic media reports. It gives the brain more time to stop, think, process and imagine from our heart. Deep voice.
Read some thought-provoking books and read a lot of books-all kinds of books that have nothing to do with your industry or major. The purpose of reading books and subjects that are not good at is to familiarize yourself with the steep learning curve and keep your brain busy.
Intelligence is the ability to acquire and apply knowledge and skills. It is about thinking, logic, comprehension, self-awareness, learning ability, emotional knowledge, reasoning ability, planning ability, creativity, critical thinking, and ability to solve problems across fields. This is a kind of wisdom that is valuable for life and career. Don’t deprive yourself of the opportunity to enrich and enhance your own intelligence.
Translator: Jane
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