Why Gifted People Don't Feel Gifted

Struggle to identify as gifted? In this video I discuss the biggest reason intelligent people don't tend to feel intelligent.

#intelligent #gifted #genius

You enter a forest. Who's forest? Why are you here? As you walk through the narrow paths and try not to stumble over the vines, you realize there's something eerily familiar about this place. You've been here before. Many times. And then it hits you. The realization. You're inside your own mindscape. This is how it looks inside your own head.

But you've never seen it like this before. Never been a simple wanderer passing through, trying to find the way. In the past, you were always the individual thoughts, the trees, always a different one, never more than a few at a time. You recognize many of these trees.

Some trees are your worries and concerns and fears. Some are frustrations and things that upset you. Some are shame, and regret. Things you wish had gone differently. Here's both the past and the future, at least, what you think could, or might happen. But looking at this forest, you are hit by a wave of perspective. You are all of these things, not any individual thought, but all thoughts, at the same time. You're both joys and sorrows, dreams and fears. All those inner conflicts were just you all along, thinking, with yourself.

My name is Erik Thor, and I'm a Jungian analyst specializing in personality psychology and positive psychology. I created this channel to do storytelling about personality psychology and personal growth.

[Shedshananigans]

I’m just intelligent enough to realize that I’m not intelligent.

[stunspot]

I attended high school at the Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy. I was lucky. I was surrounded by incredibly gifted people. It taught me humility. It taught me that even if I'm the smartest guy in the room, that's always temporary and there are always other rooms. Kind. Kindness is FAR more important than smart.

[Henlomi]

I don’t have any ambitions at all. I neither feel smart, nor stupid. I’m very good at understanding my over active mind, but I can’t apply my thought process, cause it isn’t standard for school. You’re supposed to be concrete, and not think outside the box at all. School, and people are slowly killing me, to the point where I usually go several days in a row with roughly 2-4 hours of sleep. I’m genuinely just exhausted, and I wish the world fit my needs better. There’s also a giant paradox that I think of often. On one hand, my self perception of my intelligence is high, but if I think I’m intelligent I usually just end up thinking of how stupid people usually perceive themselves as smart, and vice versa.

I just feel lonely in this world. I really liked your video. And thank you to the people who read this rant/relates. ❤

[prschuster]

I don't feel like I'm smart because I'm used to the way I think, and that feels normal to me.

[MOSP]

I feel we just know what we don’t know, anytime I want to start learning something new I realize how deep everything goes how much I still don’t know and all it’s gonna take to master it, you realize what you don’t know is and will forever be far greater in amount than the things you already know, and knowing that you can’t help but feel humble by all of it. We’re also demanding more and more of ourselves and sometimes we asked more of ourselves than what we can realistically give, regardless of your level of intelligence.

[scottjackson]

I was not labeled as gifted when I was a child. Based on my high school grades, I should have been voted most likely to skip shop class. However, by age 21, I had graduated with honors from a state university. I did well enough on the GRE to be accepted into graduate school at Stanford and Brown. I earned my M.A. at Stanford and my M.S./ITS at Johns Hopkins University. Curious about my I.Q., I took a couple of tests: the Miller Analogies Test (MAT) and the Terman Concept Mastery Test (Form-T). My MAT score got me into Mensa and Intertel. My CMT-T score qualified me for the Triple Nine Society. So, you can definitely be gifted - even highly gifted - and not know it.

[shanereynolds]

Just watched a bunch of your videos, I love them (this one in particular)! You are right. Just because people thought I was gifted in school doesn't mean I have to save the world. Nah, I just learned to read early. It's my intelligence and I can do what I want! Lol

[mikedl]

There's always a bigger, smarter fish

[lwgg]

I used to tell myself 'I'm not hungry' so I'd keep going. But now I'm trying to prioritise self-care and consider my brain, as an athletic person considers their body. Because both body and brain need vitamines, rest, etc, in the same way to fuel energy. By the way, I've lost you for a couple of years on YT after leaving my MBTI obsession behind, but I'm glad to hear your analyses again in a period of my life where I'm finding out I'm probably gifted. Always loved your insights.

[LadyAlfhild]

wow I really can learn from you. I'm in a state of cofusion and very tired, cos most people expect me to have high standards. I'm more tired of the constant opinions of others pushing me down of try to "cage" me. while I just do what I like, but with high results. I don't know how to deal with people anymore.

[Menetekel]

Incredible insights - Managing your emotions is the key. I realized this over the past years, also the exhaustion. The only thing - no matter what - pushing me, is an insatiable hunger for more insight. I know it's draining me severely, but that's the price I feel I'll always have to factor in. And inflation is high. ;)

[joebutta]

Peace be with you Brother. Thank you very much many esp you speak to those always thinking, could use/need a healthy/reminder you can take a break/sec.

Master that second ~ strive

[lgazak]

Man, thank you.
I am trying to understand how i work and why, and guys like you are my answer.
I'm really thankful for you to talk about this subject ^^
This is going to help me a lot i hope, your words are well choosed and i'm recognizing myself easily in the descriptions
For my part, i am often tired, but i still think far too much, like i had real issues with just stopping thinking until maybe 8 or 9yo, and now i'm better.
I'm trying to make myself better, since a few weeks, as i was a good bit socially awkward and now i'm already better!
Again, thank you.
Consider you have a new subscriber :)

[jacknjill]

Not sure if I’m gifted, but recently 2 ppl. have asked if I were. I’m always thinking and looking for better ways and seems like more so than the average person. I also see ppl. for what they are and more than they think who they are. For whatever I do, I try to be the best at it and try to master. I get so obsessed that something that takes someone years to learn on a high level, I can seem to manage in a few weeks. Also, when I’m doing something and even with explaining, most ppl. don’t get what I’m up to. Then they see the final results and will be impressed and had no idea, when it seems very obvious to me.

So I’m trying to find out more on what gifted is and to see if I fall under that category. Most ppl. think I’m different and some have said they never met anyone like me before.

But I find that ppl. whether or not I’m gifted, treat me badly, not all from the start, but it goes bad eventually. As tho they can’t handle someone that’s always right and for it to come so easy and I make them feel inferior or someone they need to prove to themselves that they are just as smart as I am. Basically I’m saying ppl. want to challenge me and that eventually turns to hating me. I often thought I should dumb myself down, too, to not be a threat to others, but that’s not me and I need to speak my mind.

[AA-lqpu]

Thank you, this is a big help for me. I don't feel gifted because I still have not fully mastered FL studio and music production and its been two years. The algorythim is always showing me the next level up and I am constantly met with new VSTs and techniques that I didn't know before.

[Diverse_Interests]

Other important part to know is that most things will be wrong recommendations for gifted people. Different sleep needs, different reactions to standard medical drugs, different needs to relax almost opposite to normal expectations. So if some recommendation for you isn’t working, it’s not a fault with you, you are very different from the bell curve middle.

[briansunday]

I was said to have been the most gifted kid in my school district. I, personally, always thought it was just that everyone around me was stupid. Over time I realized it was a combination of both.

[gwhiz]

Whatever your gift may be, use it to benefit others as well as yourself.

[Imnotyourdoormat]

Outstanding Video. And now we have to get to the Choppa!!!...

[Diverse_Interests]

It’s not an over active mind or over thinking. The base line comparison is neurotypical (NT)average. To understand yourself you need to actually understand NTs first. Different physiology, different memory formation/storage/retrieval, associations, capacity, speed and use of brain. Research work done by gifted people and other neurodivergent minds on the differences between mind types and watch yourself be set free and become more comfortable in what you are. Closest mind types will be ASD, ADHD, and creative minds. Overlap is high. Think of it as different hardware and operating systems. So much becomes simpler when you see the patterns of behaviour and understand when and why it occurs. It also helps to explain why value systems in yourself can be so very different in almost everyone else. Limitations, capacities and operating languages.