One school of thought is that you are either just born with it or you don't. The truth is that your intelligence can be changed. Our brains are a lot like a muscle.
We know that you can grow your muscles by going into the gym and doing exercise and straining your muscles.
You don't just work on things that are easy for your muscles to do; you do things that your muscles have to struggle with, that your muscles have to strain with and then they rebuild themselves and they come back stronger.
By struggling, its a signal to your body to devote more resources to that part of the body. And we see that exact same thing with the brain. that is constantly being challenged. Your brain is like a muscle the more you use it, the stronger it gets and that the best way to grow it isn't to do things that are easy for you. What helps your brain is when you struggle with things.
Research shows that your brain grows the most not when you get a question right, but when you get a question wrong. When you are facing those times of little bit of adversity or frustration, you can feel good about the fact that those are actually the times that your growing the most.
Research tells us that when you get something wrong, when you challenge your brain, when you review why you got it wrong, when you really process that feedback, that's when your brain grows the most.
And then if you keep doing that, you are well on your way to having a stronger, more able, and smarter brain.
