You Can Grow Your Intelligence

Is it possible to become smarter? Can you grow your brain? Well, I must admit that I was born dumb. But so were you! We were all born dumb, and the interesting thing is that we've managed to learn thousands and thousands of things that we didn't know anything about when we were babies. A very good example is talking. I didn't know how how to speak Swedish when I first came to this world. But now I do! And I can speak English and German too!

So yes, it is possible to become smarter. In fact your brain is like a muscle and when you give it challenges it gets stronger. In the brain there are neurons and when you learn something new these neurons make connections. And later, when you want to learn something else, your brain uses the old connections to make it easier. Imagine that you just learned how to juggle with three balls. Now you want to do a complicated trick. Well, you already know how to juggle, so your brain can use that information to make it easier for you to do the trick. Good, isn't it?!

But what if you fail? Over and over again. You've tried so many times, but you just keep failing. And your best friend already knows how to do the complicated trick. What should you do in that situation? Well, there are many different ways to get through this. The easiest way is to give up. But how fun is that? And if you give up you don't grow your intelligence at all.

You can also ask your friend for help. He/she will probably help you if you are brave enough to ask. Why are we so afraid to ask for help? Maybe it is because we don't want to be perceived as dumb or stupid. In fact we're all good at different things and next time it may be your friend who needs help. If we could help and teach each other without feeling stupid we would all grow our brains!

Another important thing to remember is the power of "yet". Actually I know how to juggle, but it took me several weeks to learn. Just because you can't do it now it doesn't mean that it's impossible to do it in the future. For some people it takes a week to learn how to juggle and for others it takes a month. And that's okay.

One last thing to keep in mind is to accept that you can't be good at everything. Maybe juggling isn't your thing. Maybe you're better at singing, dancing or playing handball? It doesn't matter, because we're all different!

It is possible to grow your intelligence. Just remember to practice, ask for help, not give up too soon and challenge your brain with a smile. Even if you don't make it you might learn something from it. Also, don't compare your work with others, because if you do you'll just get sad and feel that you're not good enough. The most important wisdom I've learned from working with growth mindset is that we were all born dumb. The only person who can decide how smart I'm going to become is me!