4 Tips to increase IQ
Posted on February 2, 2016
I’m vertically challenged (5’ 1”). I’m also as uncoordinated as people can get, no matter how hard I work it’s extremely unlikely I would ever make the national basketball team! I also love to sing, in the shower, where no one except my long-suffering family can hear me. If I auditioned for one of those talent shows I’d probably make it onto TV – in the bloopers section. Even if I spent hours upon hours practising I would likely never have the amazing voice of Adele. Yes, natural talent exists and it does matter. This is not about ignoring or denying natural talent and ability, this is about embracing all that we can be and helping our kids be all that they can be.
As a result of many scientific studies we now know that Intelligence Quotient, or IQ, is not simply a number that we’re born with, nor is it totally predetermined by your genetics or early life experiences, though there is no question that these do play a part. Your IQ and academic success are also affected by your mindset and psychology, and the great news is, anyone can be taught the techniques that will change their mindset and enable them to achieve greater success at school as well as many other areas of their lives.
This is great news!! It means that we are solely responsible for our successes in life, not predetermined numbers or early life experiences that we may not have had any control over. Our brains are constantly changing our day-to-day experiences as well as our diet, lifestyle and even our beliefs can change the shape of our brain and how it works. Within our brain we have many neurons that work together to create a picture of what we believe the outside world is like and that forms the basis of our experience of the world.
We’ve all seen examples of how two people can experience the same event and yet their experience of that event can be completely different, this is due to the way that they perceive the event which is dependent on their neurology. Change your neurology and you will change the meaning you give to an event. Change the meaning and you’ll change your experience of it. This all seems pretty obvious, what we now know to be true is that changing your mind doesn’t just change the way that you perceive the world but it can also change your IQ and your success in any area of your life!
The reason for this is that once a person develops what’s known as a “growth mindset” they are more open to challenges. They are less worried about “failing” as they see any feedback as an opportunity to learn and grow. By comparison a person with a “fixed mindset” will see a mistake as a failure and that failure is a fixed state. A person with a fixed mindset will often accept defeat as they believe that they have reached the limit of their ability whereas a person with a growth mindset will see their ability as limited only by their willingness to work at it.
What this means is that a person can be born with a naturally higher IQ, they can have all “the right” early childhood experiences but if they develop a mindset that limits what they will try then they will be limited by their beliefs. On the other hand a person can be born with an average or lower IQ, that can have many challenges as they grow up but if they have developed resilience and a growth mindset they can raise their IQ and achieve success in any field that they choose to put the effort into. They are not limited by their beliefs.
4 tips to increase IQ
If you want to create a growth mindset for yourself and assist young people to do the same these 4 tips are a great place to start:
- Start by developing a belief that there is no such thing as failure and only feedback.
So many young clients I work with have anxiety around tests and exams because they’ve been taught that there’s only a right and a wrong answer and to make a mistake or to get a wrong answer is a bad thing. To score low on a test is a bad thing. Rather see learning as an opportunity to grow. Making a mistake is an opportunity to learn and the only measure of success being ‘did you learn something new’ rather than ‘did you get the right answer?’
- Make mistakes, lots of them. Mess up, fall down get back up and celebrate.
Making mistakes is part of growing as a person. It’s often said that we only learn from making mistakes and those of us who are not making mistakes are not trying enough new things. It’s so important that we as adults model mistake making for our young people. If we try to show them that we are perfect and that we have all the answers then all they learn is to stick only to things that they know they are good at and they will get right. This is a very limiting way to live.
- Learn something new every day.
In our house at night we share around the table one thing we learnt that day. This shows the kids that even as adults we are still learning and it requires them to think about the things that they have learnt that day.
- Reward times where you or your child has tried something new, it hasn’t worked out but that you learnt from it.
Rewarding the learning rather than getting the right answer is a great way to encourage young people to try new things and focus on what they learn from the experience.