“Practical intelligence is an experience-based accumulation of skills and explicit knowledge as well as the ability to apply that knowledge to solve everyday problems.” – Robert Baum, Director of Entrepreneurship Research at the University of Maryland
Practical Intelligence: Introduction
Intelligence is our strongest tool. The difference arises only in the application. Practical intelligence means the effective use of one’s own intelligence, and it includes complementary skills which can be used to solve everyday problems.
Your level of practical intelligence decides your overall quality of life. It is the basis of your self-confidence. Intelligence itself, without a few important skills (which you have to develop yourself), regularly loses the battle in the fight against excessive reactions and negative emotions that occur under the pressure of life’s challenges.
One of the most important aspects of practical intelligence is coping successfully with life’s failures and disappointments, which cannot be learned by hiding within your comfort zone. People who plan and work intensively on their goals face many more setbacks and enjoy much more success than those who do not work on their goals. In this way, their experience grows faster than other people’s, which also increases their self-confidence. That’s what you need.
What does practical intelligence involve?
Practical intelligence is the only way to use your own potential as best you can and live the life you really want to. It includes, among other things:
– Having high self-confidence
– Taking steps towards your goals without delay
– Understanding the correlation of everything in your life
– Taking responsibility for your own actions and their consequences
– Understanding and controlling your emotions
– Coping successfully with various life challenges
– Honing your communication and social skills
– Possessing excellent knowledge of yourself, and improvement of your own weak points
– Persevering in achieving your goals regardless of obstacles and negative emotions
Giving up: life-endangering habit
When you do something for the first time, the chances that you will fail and be disappointed are high. But if you persevere in your plan, you will eventually succeed. The jump in confidence will be huge. Very soon you will be able to imagine yourself achieving several times bigger goals. The self-confidence gained in this way hardly disappears. Unfortunately, it is a step that many never cross. It’s easier to find an excuse and give up than to push until you reach your goal.
Those who successfully achieve their life goals know that disappointments are the normal part of the process. Goals are just passing stations; as soon as we achieve one goal, we set another one. That is why the path to your own goals is much more important than the goals themselves. Everything important happens on that path.
Try to imagine the last day of your life. What do you think you will regret the most at that moment? You can be sure that you will most regret missed opportunities. Because of fear of disappointment (or pure laziness), most people deprive themselves of the satisfaction that comes with personal growth and achieved accomplishments.
Conclusion:
Giving up and looking for excuses will condemn you to mediocrity. Don’t allow yourself that. If you let your own weaknesses run your life, you will be on the right track to spend your life in a completely wrong way. Only by consciously stepping out of your comfort zone and facing new situations will you force yourself to realize your true potential. Otherwise, you will constantly look for a line of least resistance, and the result will eventually be a degradation of your quality of life, which has no lower limit.
Links:
- Free downloads: PDF and the audiobook Fulfilling Life: A matter of Personal Choice with all the accompanying checklists you need to get started
- Great Books for a Great Life – all the answers to your questions in one place
“In order to write about life, first you must live it.”– Ernest Hemingway