For as long as I can remember, I have been passionate about encouraging people to chase their goals, to commit to their dream and really aim at achieving it. Whether it’s on the sporting field, in a career, as a parent – whatever it is – I love to see people’s hard work pay off. I love it when the dream that has been chased, for so many months, years or decades gradually loses its fuzziness and sneaks into the clarity of reality and is no longer just a dream that is being longed for, but a realistic expectation. It’s inspiring, encouraging, and it offers hope to others watching, who have their own goals they want to achieve.
My interest in this area has not only allowed me to see the fruits of hard work finally begin to appear, but it has allowed me to see the struggles that need to be overcome in order to reach the goal; self doubt, fear, stress and the desire to quit because the dream seems to have temporarily slipped from the status of a dream to an impossibility.
One of the biggest stumbling blocks I have noticed in so many peoples minds is their lack of belief in their potential capabilities due to what they believe is a lack of intelligence; People doubting their ability to achieve based on the fact they just don’t feel ‘smart’ enough – whatever that means - to know how to get from their current location to the destination of their dream. The belief that if they had just got a better education, or better grades then they could have been successful, but since they didn’t, the chance at succeeding is gone.
From the day we begin school, we are assessed, analysed, judged not only in the playground by other students, but in the classroom. When the teachers mark our work, our ‘intelligence’ begins to become more clear based on the accuracy of our answers in the classroom. Ticks represent intelligence, whereas crosses signal that we may be struggling in that certain area. Kids who ‘aren’t smart’ get more of the crosses. As we get a little older people become aware of the ‘smart’ and ‘dumb’ kids, and tease them both because of it. The smart of course being the kids who continually submit work returning with ticks rather than crosses. The same system for assessing student’s work is used continually throughout their school lives. Eventually they are given score which highlights how intelligent they were with ‘their powers combined’ across all areas of study in year twelve.
Though each and every subject in school does require intelligence, or understanding it’s sad to see so many people who submitted work with more crosses than ticks in the subjects that the school system offers, believe that because they were not as successful as others in those areas, that their chance of success in the outside world is limited. They start to believe that because their grades at school weren’t great, they are unable to excel in another field in the outside world.
Consider this;
Henry Ford, the founder of Ford Motor Company was born into poverty he never actually even attended school. As one of the richest men that had ever lived, his success in his particular field indicates a certain level of intelligence. Maybe not the intelligence we measure in schools, university or even in the workplace, but intelligence none the less.
Richard Branson, the founder of Virgin Brand dropped out of school at age 16 to chase his own business dreams. The billionaire now is well known around the world for his business success
Is it possible, that we have generalised what intelligence actually entails? It just doesn’t seem right that we so casually label peoples intelligence based on their ability to complete a sum, spell a word or remember trivia. Though this is a small spectrum of what intelligence is, it cannot reveal the extent of a persons overall intelligence - surely. It seems so narrow minded to label someone ‘intelligent’ based on an enter score or mark on an assignment – they maybe be talented in the field they were judged on –but that doesn’t automatically make them smarter than a person whose talented in another area.
We all have talents. We all have dreams.
Regardless of what you have been told by your teacher,
Regardless of what you have been told by your friends,
Regardless of how many people may laugh at your lack of understanding of a certain sum or word,
Remember that just because you may not have performed well in the subjects offered at school does not mean you lack the ability to achieve in your career. There are so many other skills that go towards being successful,
The ability to communicate,
The ability to believe,
The ability to be different, think different,
The ability to persist,
The ability to remain hopefully when everyone else have lost hope
Do not let what you have been told about your level of intelligence manipulate or downgrade the vision you have for your future. Just because a talent was not there for a certain field, by no means says it’s not there in another.
We can all be an expert in chosen field.
It may just take time to find it.
You’re smarter than you think.
Just a thought.
