Comforting Guide Journal

If you agree or strongly agree with any of these statements then it is time to look at your personal philosophy about yourself. You seem to believe that you cannot do anything to improve what you were born with. Failures are inevitable.

You are not alone. There are many students and adults who have the same mindset; they believe that intelligence is fixed at birth. But, it is really not true unless you have suffered a brain defect or injury, and even those are not a guarantee of lack of intelligence.

Of course people do have different talents but that just means that some things come easily to them. Not everything. If they meet something outside their field of talent the playing field is level. They have to learn just like anyone else. And someone else may have a talent in that area.

The point is that intelligence is about learning how to learn and pushing through the failures in order to succeed at learning. The brain is pliable and elastic. It will learn if there is enough emphasized input and importance is placed on that input. Repetition is one form of emphasis. Emotional need is another type of emphasis. If you really place importance on something you are learning, your brain will perceive that importance and work extra hard to learn it – ie. the order of the periodic table, the quadratic formula, dosage equivalents, etc. Your brain will work overtime while you sleep if you place importance on the information you are putting into the brain.

So, those previous questions tell you where you are coming from, not where you are going. You are a professional learner, a life-long student. Carry on with zeal!