In this series of posts, I’m putting two ideas together—the idea that smart, creative, sensitive individuals are confronted by special challenges and the idea that journaling is a valuable self-help tool—and turning them into a set of journaling prompts designed to lead you on a personal journey of discovery.
I hope that you enjoy these prompts. Here are five more challenges, and four journal prompts to go with each challenge. Engaging with any one of them may well serve you. I hope you find these valuable! And I hope you’ll take a look at Why Smart People Hurt and at my latest journal, Affirmations for Self-Love.
The challenges I wanted to chat about in this post can be collectively thought of as “the smart gap,” that is, the distance between the intelligence you’re currently manifesting and the intelligence you actually need in order to do the work and the thinking you want to do. To put it one way, if you want to be a theoretical physicist but have trouble comprehending the ideas of theoretical physics, how will that work out for you? Let’s break this challenge down into five related ideas, and let me provide you with four journal prompts for each idea.
- The challenge of not being as smart as you might otherwise be if only anxiety or some other roadblock didn’t get in the way. For example, maybe you’ve never reached your full intellectual potential because you can’t tolerate silence or solitude. If that’s the case, your “smart gap” isn’t a function of native intelligence but of something else.
+ Is something “in the way” of you being as smart as you might be?
+ Can you identify that “something”? Or is it perhaps multiple somethings?
+ If you can identify that “something,” what might you try to deal with that obstacle?
+ If you can’t identify that “something,” what’s your best path forward?
2. The challenge of distractibility standing between you and your native intelligence. Maybe you find it easy to concentrate on your favorite computer game but hard to concentrate when it comes to learning math or a second language, and maybe this difficulty has resulted in an ADHD or ADD diagnosis. How can you be as smart as you would like to be if this is your challenge?
+ Are you easily bored and distracted?
+ Do you have a sense of why that happens? Do you think it’s a “mental disorder,” a brain difference, or something else?
+ What helps you concentrate? Do you have some strategies that work for you?
+ If distractibility and a lack of concentration are issues for you, what might you try to minimize their impact?
3. If the idea of multiple intelligences is a solid idea and if people are intelligent in different domains and in different ways, what if your “highest intelligence” is not the intelligence required for the work you would like to get accomplished? To put it one way, if you are brilliant at music but not brilliant at interpersonal matters, how will that play out in your career as a counselor or a psychotherapist?
+ What are your thoughts on the idea of “multiple intelligences”?
+ Do you see yourself as having certain “stronger” intelligences and certain “weaker” intelligences?
+ Does the profession, line of work, or kind of thinking that you do line up with one of your “stronger” intelligences or one of your “weaker” intelligences?
+ If it lines up with one of your “weaker” intelligences, what’s your game plan?
4. What if your circumstances are making thinking hard and producing this smart gap? What if, for example, you live in a noisy environment with lots of roommates or lots of siblings and lots of dramas and squabbles? How easy will your best thinking be to come by in such circumstances?
+ Are your circumstances getting in the way of your ability to think and/or your opportunity to think?
+ Is there something about those circumstances that you can change?
+ If those circumstances can’t be changed, how will you proceed?
+ In your mind’s eye, picture the “perfect circumstances” for thinking. What do you see?
5. If, for whatever reason, from natural intelligence to an anxious nature to a certain intellectual laziness on your part to your circumstances, this smart gap is a reality in your life, what will you do either to “close it” or “live with it”?
+ If you’re experiencing this smart gap, how might you close it?
+ If you’re experiencing this smart gap and can’t see a way to close it, how will you proceed?
+ What would allow you to access more of your native intelligence?
+ Given the above conversation, do you see some changes you would like to make?
More to come! Enjoy!
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This Post is republished on Medium.
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Photo credit: iStock
