Feeling less "dumb"
Thank you to @Hydrangea03 for suggesting this post in the last forum post I made earlier this week. I think I might start posting that fourth secret question to get more inspiring ideas from you all of what I should be writing about! I really like this topic because I think this is a topic that students all universally struggle with and it's also something we continue to struggle with when we reach adulthood.
To start, I think feeling dumb is really natural. We live in this age where it's somehow more "trendy" or just more appropriate to continue being mean to ourselves and use unkind words to describe ourselves. I think many teens my age, or younger people, might do this to remain more humble! It sounds like it makes more sense to call yourself dumb than it is to call someone else dumb, but in reality, both aren't good. Calling yourself dumb and thinking that you're actually dumb, is a way of putting yourself down. Putting ourselves down, although extremely easy to do, can be damaging to our mental health and greatly affects how we view things.
That's why I think the best way to start feeling less dumb is to accept it and validate feeling dumb as a natural thing to happen. With everything from culture, family, friends, comparisons, media, and everything else that surrounds us today, it's more than understandable to feel not-smart or just not smart enough. Validating that feeling and telling ourselves that it's okay to feel this way is the first step to bettering this issue. When we frustrate ourselves with how dumb we feel or get overwhelmed with the idea of not being smart enough, that can often lead to more pain down the road and makes us feel worse.
After validating these thoughts, it's time to figure out why they are happening. Dig deep and really reflect on why you believe that you're not smart or if you're dumb on an internal level. Is it because of something someone said in the past? Was it a bad test score you recently got? Whatever the reason to this feeling is, you're not dumb no matter what. I think this might be the hardest truth to understand and grasp, but it's really true. No matter how much evidence you bring up that can counter this statement, the most scientific response is that although others might have differences in IQs and disabilities, we're all capable of growing.
Utilizing growth and the process of learning is how we become smarter. We might not be the smartest person in the classroom, but that doesn't mean we're doomed to be forever dumb. We have to all realize that we have the capabilities of becoming better, and it's up to us and the encouragement from our peers to utilize that and try to be better. Growth is learning how to learn and being gentle with ourselves in that process. In the future when you catch yourself calling yourself dumb or really believing that it's true, you can also try to change your pattern of thinking. For example, we can rephrase "I'm just so dumb" to "I'm a bit disappointed in myself for this, I wonder what I can do next to make it better".
This was an interesting post to write about because it sort of taught me how "simple" it can look really simple and easy to do. But it's definitely not! It's definitely one of the hardest things to change because it's so ingrained in our heads. It's almost like an automatic response. Learn how to take time with this process and there is a possibility for growth over time. There are small changes we can all make like how we talk to ourselves and how we think about tough situations, but they're all changes that are worth taking and thinking about. Remember that consistency is vital, it takes a lot of consistency to take back this idea of being "dumb" and replace it with more care and growth.
Discussion questions:
1) Do you often call yourself dumb or do you consider yourself being dumb or even both? Why so?
2) What are some things you can do to be more gentle with how you talk to yourself?
3) Are you watching a tv show or reading a book right now? Feel free to share!
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Hii!! Ahh thank you so much for this lovely post, Im so happy that you liked my suggestion \(o ▽`o)/
Thank you really, I love how comforting this post is :) Other articles in other websites ‘convince me that Im not dumb by bringing in statistical evidence and anecdotes of ‘dumb people who became successful (or something like that), but I suppose what I truly want to hear the most is that feeling not-smart is common nowadays, and that I can still overcome that thought!
1) Do you often call yourself dumb or do you consider yourself being dumb or even both? Why so?
Adhdksk yes both,,, I think this all sort of branches from my perfectionism lol - its really that simple, but very damaging. Whats more is that, looking back to elementary and early junior high, I used to be so much more academically ‘advanced. I could almost pinpoint the time in my life when my mental health crisis began to peak, and at that same time my grades began to drop. Ever since then, I have always sort of blamed myself for being mentally ill because I ended up getting ‘dumb. I guess the hyperawareness that I used to excel academically better than right now is one of the reasons too. Ive become obsessed with being smart, and bad grades - especially a series of them - became nightmares to me.
2) What are some things you can do to be more gentle with how you talk to yourself?
I love the idea of changing my mindset and the things I say to myself! Im going to try to channel the negativity of feeling dumb into growth.
3) Are you watching a tv show or reading a book right now? Feel free to share!
Im reading a lovely book right now - its a Chinese webnovel (again!), and its really great! Its a high-fantasy novel with a lot of chapters (200+), and Im barely halfway, but Im excited to thread into it! So far its really thrilling ^^. As to what its about, its a little complicated because it has a ton of subplots, and I havent gotten to the point where the story even started yet :p
@Hydrangea03
Hi there!! I can't believe stats show that, although it's true that some people with.. questionable beliefs have gotten very far in life. But you summed up my point perfectly, feeling non-smart is normal but we can always overcome this feeling. :) Ah, I can really relate with what you're saying about being the smart kid back in elementary and middle school, I also had some things happen in the middle of my middle school years that impacted me greatly. I also relate to what you're saying about perfectionism! It's such a hard thing to overcome and it's also incredibly common too. I can empathize with focusing on grades. Over time, I've learned to shift my focus on grades towards a love for learning. It's been a really nice shift and has really helped me grow more as a person! I'm looking forward to hearing your process with channeling your negative feelings into growth. <3 Proud of you!! I might be the only person out of my Chinese group of friends (I'm Chinese-Taiwanese haha) to have never read a web-comic?? But super glad that you're into that and I hope you're continuing to have fun with it. :) Take care!
This is such a good post! It makes me feel less alone with this issue of feeling dumb lol plus it comes at a great time as I was doubting myself lately!
1) Do you often call yourself dumb or do you consider yourself being dumb or even both? Why so?
I dont really call myself dumb, but I definitely think it and kinda believe it. I mean, I know Im not stupid but at the same time I do feel dumb and not there yet knowledge-wise. Long story short: Im a chemist and I started a PhD almost a year ago now in biology (with bits of chemistry but so far it has mostly been biology) so I definitely dont have all the biology background (theory and practice) and that makes me feel dumb…
2) What are some things you can do to be more gentle with how you talk to yourself?
I think its legit that I feel dumb considering my situation, I mean, I might have to find a more gentle word than dumb to characterize it, but I do have lots to learn (we all have at some point!) Its just a huge lot of material to learn here and I might not be able to get to the same level of knowledge as a real biologist during my PhD (unless theres a new lockdown lol) but it doesnt matter, its a challenge, Im slowly learning and loving it! Plus I should also remind myself that its a fairly new subject to me so it wouldnt be fair to only judge me biology-wise as it wouldn't be an accurate scale to define me as dumb or not.
3) Are you watching a tv show or reading a book right now? Feel free to share!
I just finished watching The Sinner which is a really cool TV show (totally recommended!) about a detective investigating cases that looked solved but actually had much more to the story. And Im planning on starting the book 2 of 1Q84 from Murakami!
Thanks a lot for this post Atticus!
@LinearWaves
Linear!! I feel like I haven't talked to you through forums for ages. How have you been doing? <3 Thank you for responding to this post and I'm glad to hear that it has helped! I'm sorry to hear that you've been doubting yourself lately, it happens to me too and I hope it's been getting better over time. :) I totally get where you're coming from and I think it's super understandable for you to feel like you're dumb when you're starting a very new subject in your studies or a topic you're not quite familiar with. I'm so proud of you for pursuing your PhD though and I know you're going to do great things! I think what you're trying to do with reminding yourself about how tough it is to start a PhD in biology while having a huge background in chemistry. Thank you for sharing the tv show and book suggestions, my friend is also reading 1q84 right now and I'm going to try and get into it after I finish the 4 books I'm currently reading! xD <3 Take care Linear and so so proud of you!
@TheAtticusFinch
It's been a long time indeed! I'm doing alright thanks, how about you? ❤
Thank you for your reply and kind words!
Wow 4 books? Are you reading them all at the same time? Take good care of yourself as well!
@LinearWaves
It has been a bit, I need to get better at responding to all forum check-ins when I have the time to. Especially yours. <3 I am doing really well too and glad to hear you're doing alright. I am indeed reading them all at the same time! 1 for a book club, 1 for school, and 2 anti-racism books that I'm reading around 20 pages each of each day! :) I'm a big reader hahah
@TheAtticusFinch
I need to get better at that as well haha! Somehow I always tell myself I'll do it later and well, we all know how that goes lol
It's good to hear you're doing really well! I hope your readings can be fun and instructive depending on the books!
Discussion questions:
1) Do you often call yourself dumb or do you consider yourself being dumb or even both? Why so?
I do... It isn't something I'm proud about, because objectively I'm not dumb. I consistently achieve scores in the top 1% in every standardized test I've taken, I've maintained a top notch GPA with little effort (not that I don't care about school; it's just that I had other things going on and didn't have the energy to put into my academics), and I've gotten accepted by every academic institution I've applied for. Academically, I'm not dumb. But I constantly feel that way because I keep comparing myself only to the smartest people around me. "She already took the SAT in Freshman year, and I haven't even started preparing." "She's taking AP World History while I'm not." "She's doing so much; she must be so driven and smart, while I'm... not". It's a toxic mentality, but it's one that I keep falling into. I dismiss my accomplishments and focus on the things that I'm not doing that other people are doing.
2) What are some things you can do to be more gentle with how you talk to yourself?
This is difficult... Because I often feel that the borderline unreachable standards I hold for myself are partly a good thing. When I am feeling unmotivated, they don't help me at all. They make me feel worse, because I've never once truly met them. However, when I do get out of that unproductive slump, these high standards I've been beating myself up about are the things that push me beyond my limits. This often leads to more burnouts, but it also pushes me to be my best. I feel that without being harsh about this, I'll forget it and become an embarrassingly unproductive lump.
3) Are you watching a tv show or reading a book right now? Feel free to share!
I've recently finished watching a (NOVA?) documentary on AI and the eventual possibility of building/developing a brain. It was fascinating!
@TheGoodFairy
Heyyy <3 I'm responding to all your replies today haha <3 As always, I relate to a lot of the things you talked about and I think we may have grown up in similar environments in the way that we have developed our mindsets in. I too am objectively not dumb and academically considered "talented" as you are, but I also struggle with social comparisons. I might have replied to you with this already, but social comparisons are the death of all things meant to be joyful. :// It's been empirically proven that forms of social comparison, whether through simple observance or through social media, leads us to enjoy things much less than we normally would. I find knowing evidence and facts like this to help me believe that I'm dumb less, if that makes sense and I hope it can help you as well. The high standards that you have can do a lot of good, I agree, but it can also do the unnecessary bad of making you so stressed! I often used to look at it like a dichotomy, with one end being way too extreme of "not working" and the other being "ultra-productive but burning out" and I've learned to find my own balance between working really hard at the things I enjoy doing and also taking time to practice self-love and self-care. I hope you're able to do the same as well and I know you will eventually, you are so smart and talented. I'm sure others all see you us this way, but it's time we see ourselves this way as well. :) Thanks for the documentary recommendation! I gotta get back into documentary watching soon.