August 16: A Celebration of My Mind

August 16 — A Celebration of My Mind

Celebrate your intelligence, curiosity, creativity, resilience, and the way you solve problems.

Throughout my life I have always minimised myself as someone who works really hard, someone intelligence does not come easily to.

There were people around me who would walk into an exam having studied two hours before it, and ace it. Meanwhile I would have dedicated hours every day for weeks to get to the same result. I was someone who needed to put in so much work. I'm not naturally gifted. I would literally recite to myself that hard work beats talent when talent doesn't work hard. As if I lacked any talent.

That thought carried with me all throughout primary schooling and even university. As I aced every exam and got top grades, I reminded myself it was because of my hard work, and that I can't afford to relax. I have to work even harder to maintain that standard. Until studying and books ate away at my youth. I locked myself up behind a book or a computer all my 20s. I spent so much time in university studying.

Then I started teaching, and this is where I built most of my confidence, because I did not have the luxury of time. I was juggling so much on my plate. I didn't have the time to prep in the way I had thought I needed. Often I had to "wing it," to put myself out there with zero preparation, to improvise on the spot. And guess what?

I did so well! My brain served me in ways it never had. It is as if erasing that belief unleashed the potential of my mind, my creativity, and my intelligence all at once.

Another thing that debunked the judgment I made on myself (that I wasn't smart or talented, that I just out-worked everyone) is my creative process. Usually when faced with a problem, I'd have an instant answer. Then I'd walk away from it, and I'd be doing something completely unrelated, like swimming in the ocean, and the exact perfect solution would come to me. As if it had descended from the sky and fallen right into my brain. As if my brain had been working subconsciously in the background, and once the idea finished cooking, it would ding, ring in my head. That is completely unrelated to hard work, isn't it?

I could also be in a conversation with my friends, or a random barista, and something they say triggers a link to an issue I was trying to solve. This is a daily occurrence.

Only now in my 30s do I realise that it was exactly that thought that was detrimental to my success. It was the lack of confidence I had in myself, the categorical error about my mind that I had made. I limited myself. A lot of people work hard too and don't get the results. If I trusted my mind, and let my intelligence rather than my fears and self-doubt take the lead, I would achieve better results with a fraction of the effort.

Today, as I read that prompt, I realised I have never given myself credit. I always attribute it to hard work, which in itself is an amazing quality, but I am also creative and smart naturally.

I'm so curious about the world and everything in it. I love to learn and educate myself in fields that are so unrelated, and find ways to trace them back together. I have an incredible way of merging interdisciplinary knowledge, taking a bit of this and mixing it with a bit of that. I have a natural ability to spot potential and learn how to use it.

Today I celebrate that.

It's all because of God's glory. I'm so grateful for the mind God blessed me with. I'm so grateful for my curiosity. I'm so grateful for my hunger for knowledge and growth. I'm so grateful for my work ethic.