Stop Saying You Are Not Smart Enough

Because you are way more intelligent than you think

Photo by Siora Photography on Unsplash

Studying and learning is hard, but anyone can do it.

When I started studying Psychology I saw how other students always got better grades than me. Also, I noticed they did not get stressed, slept 8 hours, and had time for social life. They were super-people.

I concluded I wasn’t good enough.

They were talented, with a lot of prior knowledge that made them get a great GPA. They were born to be bright and ace their exams. I realized that they were, in fact, smart.

However, this popular view is wrong and creates barriers to success.

The difference between “smart” and “not-smart” people is that the latter don’t know how to learn or study effectively. Learning is a process of linking information to long-term memory and science has discovered which study techniques are better to accomplish this.

Everyone can learn anything and ace their exams, for real.

Let me show you how you can.

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The Problem: They Never Taught Us How To Learn And Study

Most people (including ourselves) don’t know how to study effectively.

This is not our fault, because no one taught us how to do it. If you ask students how they study they will (probably) say by rereading and highlighting. For example, you take your book and highlight it. Then, you read and reread your highlights. Next, you take some notes and create a summary. You study it by rereading it. Wrong.

Science has shown that these are ineffective study strategies.

Better strategies include retrieval, interleaving, spaced practice, dual coding, elaboration, and concrete examples (Weinstein et al., 2018). Have you ever heard about them?

Well, most people don’t.

They keep studying using rereading and highlighting as their holy-grail strategies and get fooled by the illusion of learning (thinking you learned something when you didn’t).

Don’t worry, there’s a better way to study.

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With The Right Strategy, You Can Learn Anything

The key thing when learning and studying is using the right system.

A simple but good strategy includes the following:

1. A plan.

2. The best science-proven study strategies.

3. Focus.

4. Track your progress and get feedback.

Example: Learning Machine Learning As An Absolute Beginner

As a psychology student, I knew nothing about math and programming.

However, I understood that learning is a process and that there is always a way to learn anything effectively. So I did the following:

1. I built a roadmap based on other’s experience (experts and people who learned machine learning from 0).

2. I used retrieval and spaced practice when studying. To study abstract concepts, I used chat GPT to learn with analogies. Then, I combined everything in coding projects.

3. To avoid procrastination, I studied in short sessions of 25 minutes (Pomodoro) and focused using the Focus Keeper app (free).

4. I tracked my progress (skills I learned, what I found more challenging, self-test marks, etc).

5. Got feedback with tests to understand what I know and don’t know and how to improve myself.

I had no idea of machine learning, for real.

Also, note that (sadly) I never studied linear algebra, not even in high school (basic math for machine learning). However, after using this learning strategy, I now have a solid understanding of this.

Now, I code machine learning for my research every week.

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You Are Intelligent And Can Learn Anything

It is not that you’re not smart enough.

It is that you don’t know how to learn and study effectively.

You are way more intelligent than you think.

The main reason why people believe they are not enough is the consequence of studying with ineffective techniques. Worse still, the illusion of learning makes you believe you learned something when you didn’t. Most times, you realize this during exams, increasing your frustration, stress, and anxiety and reducing your motivation.

Remember, learning is a process of linking information to your long-term memory.

With the right strategy, you can ace your exams, sleep 8 hours, and have a social life.

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3 Software To Help You Study

Lastly, I want to recommend 3 free software to help you learn anything:

1. Focus Keeper.

2. Anki.

3. Obsidian.

These were life-changing in my learning revolution.

Shortly, Focus Keeper helps you set your Pomodoros to focus on studying. Anki helps you create flashcards to practice retrieval and get feedback to understand what you know and don’t know. Finally, Obsidian is a popular (and favorite) software to build a second (extended) brain to store and organize all the information you don’t want to forget.

Use them and I’m sure they will help you boost your learning.

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So now you know: it is all about using the right strategies.

During your learning path, you will meet people with more prior knowledge than you for a particular topic. Don’t compare yourself unfairly. Understand where you are and where you want to be in the future. Ask what success means to you and build a plan to achieve it.

Finally, use effective strategies to learn.

Using this I can't see how you won't be a great student.

Some Questions For You

• What do you want or need to study?

• How is your target structured, and how can you learn it step by step?

• What does success mean to you?

• Where are you now in your learning path and where do you want to be?

In the next posts, I will take you on a new journey of learning: ultra-learning and how to defeat student’s worse enemies (hint: one is procrastination).

Until the next time,

Axel

Check out all the Super Learning Lab articles here.