10 Daily Habits Of People With A Low IQ
They don't challenge themselves as often as they should.
Andrii Nekrasov | Shutterstock Some people are born with intelligence, while others spend their lives working to acquire a higher level of intelligence. Even people who are naturally smart have to stick to a routine that allows their traits to flourish. The daily habits of people with a low IQ tend to hold them back more than helping to build up their intelligence.
While a person's IQ doesn't always dictate their life path or how successful they'll be, it can influence the way someone spends their time. People with a low IQ often get stuck in patterns that prevent them from reaching their full potential. Noticing what those patterns are is the first step to making changes and boosting their IQs.
Here are 10 daily habits of people with a low IQ
1. They don't take on challenges
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A daily habit of people with a low IQ is more about what they don't do than the action they take. People with a low IQ avoid challenging themselves. Instead of picking the hard tasks and seeing how far they can go, they walk the path of least resistance. By not taking on challenges, people with low IQs stay stuck in the mentality that they can't be successful when, in reality, changing their mindset could change their lives.
In her book, "Mindset: The New Psychology of Success," Stanford psychologist Carol Dweck explained the differences between having a fixed mindset and a growth mindset. People with a fixed mindset believe that intelligence is static and unchangeable, while people with a growth mindset believe that intelligence is a trait that can be developed.
"The passion for stretching yourself and sticking to it, even (or especially) when it's not going well, is the hallmark of the growth mindset. This is the mindset that allows people to thrive during some of the most challenging times in their lives," Dweck wrote.
"My research has shown that the view you adopt for yourself profoundly affects the way you lead your life," she continued. "It can determine whether you become the person you want to be and whether you accomplish the things you value."
Dweck defined a growth mindset as "the belief that your basic qualities are things you can cultivate through your efforts... They believe that a person's true potential is unknown (and unknowable); that it's impossible to foresee what can be accomplished with years of passion, toil, and training." She noted that people with a fixed mindset believe "Effort is a bad thing. It, like failure, means you're not smart or talented. If you were, you wouldn't need effort. In the other world, effort is what makes you smart or talented."
People with a low IQ shy away from challenging themselves, which often keeps them from taking advantage of new opportunities.
2. They have poor time management
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People with a low IQ have poor time management skills, which hinders their ability to get things done. They're easily distracted and have a tendency to procrastinate, especially when it comes to tackling important tasks. Having poor time management skills can leave people feeling disorganized and scattered. Their daily lack of structure usually leads to more stress and an increased likelihood of burning out at work.
Certified professional organizer Diane Quintana shared techniques for proactive time management, which she described as "how one coordinates tasks and activities within their day to maximize their efforts." Quintana encouraged people to decide what's most important to them and start from there. "Remember to place your focus on things that support the way you want to live," she shared.
Quintana advised people to approach their day by dividing it into segments, and schedule a specific area of focus for each segment of the day. "Take advantage of your personal strengths and better organize your day so that you do your hardest, most challenging work when you know you are at your best," she stated.
While multitasking might make you feel like you're getting more done, Quintana doesn't recommend it as a time management strategy, since it can "actually cause you to digress in productivity," as "wasting time on low-value activities and failing to prioritize can lead to unaccomplished goals."
3. They don't eat a healthy diet
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We are what we eat, as the saying goes, and having a balanced diet goes a long way in fueling a person's brain power. Eating poorly can negatively impact people's energy levels and cognitive functioning, so they have a harder time focusing on the task at hand. Junk food is undeniably tasty, but it's mostly made up of empty calories that lack the nutrients we need to keep us going.
Neuroscientist Dr. Amy Reichelt explained that junk food diets not only affect people's behavioral control, they also affect the hippocampus, the area of the brain responsible for memory. Dr. Reichelt's research showed that eating junk food on a consistent basis causes neuroinflammation, which can impair a person's ability to learn and remember facts.
"This means people who consume lots and lots of junk food don't perform as well on memory tests as people who eat healthy diets," she concluded. Overconsumption of junk food can reduce a person's neuroplasticity, which is how neurons wire themselves in order to form memories.
Dr. Reichelt recommended that people treat junk food as a reward, rather than basing their whole diets around it.
4. They avoid problem-solving
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People with a low IQ avoid solving problems and tend to accept negative outcomes as something they can't change. A sign of having high intelligence is leaning into problem-solving, while people with a low IQ let their fear of failure lead them away from getting involved in complex situations.
Life and career transformation coach Lisa Petsinis explained that making small, consistent changes to your life can help you build a stronger sense of resilience. She recommended recognizing emotions as they come and not judging yourself for feeling one way or another. She noted that reinforcing boundaries and asking for help are both key parts of bolstering your resilience.
"Building resilience takes time, effort, and trial and error," Petsinis concluded. "You'll experience setbacks and wonder if you'll ever make it, and your definition of success might even evolve over time."
5. They have limited curiosity
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People with a low IQ tend to have a limited sense of curiosity. They lack interest in pushing themselves to learn new topics or ideas, which can leave them feeling stuck in one place. In contrast, people who are highly intelligent are deeply curious about a range of subjects. They're aware that they don't know all the answers, yet they don't see that as a negative trait, but rather, as an opportunity to learn.
A study in the journal Brain Sciences defined curiosity as "the recognition, pursuit and desire to explore novel, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous events." Curiosity initiates and facilitates a person's drive to gain knowledge just for knowledge's sake, and not for any particular purpose. The study noted that being curious is connected to many positive outcomes. People who are knowledge-seekers have better psychological, cognitive, and social well-being.
People with a low IQ worry that admitting they don't know something will make them seem unintelligent, when really, it sends a message that they're willing to try and find out the answers.
6. They rarely read
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People with a low IQ don't read as often as people with superior levels of intelligence. The act of reading functions like exercising: It keeps people's brains active and strengthens their critical thinking skills.
Reading opens people's minds to new perspectives and enhances their senses of empathy and compassion. People who rarely read miss out on learning new things, which negatively impacts their adaptability and keeps them mired down by a limited world-view.
The more a person reads, the healthier their brains are. A Taiwanese research study published in "International Psychogeriatrics" followed 1,962 elderly people over 14 years to measure their cognitive decline.
The researchers noted that some level of cognitive decline is part of the natural aging process, yet reading served as a way to protect cognitive function later in life. The reduced risk of cognitive decline brought about by reading occurred across all levels of education, meaning that it didn't matter how highly educated someone was; reading helped them stay mentally sharp.
7. They overuse social media
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By now, the negative effects of too much screen time have been well documented, yet people with a low IQ tend to scroll excessively, despite all the mental and physical health warnings. The more time a person spends on social media, the less time they spend on other activities. Overusing social media can reduce people's focus and seriously impact how they feel about themselves.
A study published Frontiers in Cognition noted that people have a finite capacity for sustained attention, which means they can only focus on specific tasks for a limited period of time. The ubiquity of smartphones has made it even more difficult for people to avoid distractions, and excessive smartphone use is connected to poorer attentional control.
The study's authors explained that "'Continuous partial attention' is a symptom of attentional overload in the digital world." They described continuous partial attention as "the state of continuously dividing and shifting one's attention across multiple tasks or stimuli without fully immersing oneself and only partially engaging in any one of them" which leads to "a superficial understanding of information and a reduced ability to concentrate on any one task or piece of information."
While social media use is a fairly unavoidable facet of the world we live in, placing limits on screen time can help people devote their minds to activities that increase their intelligence.
8. They seek immediate gratification
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Another daily habit of people with low IQ is seeking immediate gratification. They want rewards without hard work. They want to see results right away, which means they have a hard time working on projects that take extended time and effort. They struggle to set goals for themselves, and even when they do set goals, they tend to stray off task or lose interest quickly.
Because they're constantly seeking immediate gratification, people with a low IQ often take the easy way out, instead of devoting themselves to difficult tasks. They're not ones to raise their hands in a meeting to volunteer for extra work, even if that's the pathway toward promotion. They might feel stagnant, but they lack the necessary self-awareness to reflect on why they feel that way.
9. They don't teach themselves new skills
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People who have a low IQ don't go out of their way to learn new skills. They're intimidated by the very idea of learning, so they stay exactly where they are. They prefer to settle even deeper into their regular routine than shake things up and reach for the stars.
Of course, there's comfort in familiarity, but by not stepping outside their comfort zone, people with a low IQ never discover their full potential. They're often passed over when it comes to assigning new professional roles. They miss out on opportunities because they don't see any need to acquire new skills.
Their fear of learning new things can hold them back in their romantic relationships, as they have a hard time being self-reflective enough to be truly emotionally available to their partners.
10. They don't question their own beliefs
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People with a low IQ don't question their own belief systems. They accept the world as is, from within their limited perspective. They don't ask "why" and they don't ask "how." They don't care about understanding nuance or trying to understand other people's opinions. They're deeply stuck in their own ways, and they don't wonder what keeps them there.
If people with a low IQ zoomed out of their daily habits for even a brief moment, they would be able to see that they are the ones holding themselves back from reaching their own dreams.
Alexandra Blogier is a writer on YourTango's news and entertainment team. She covers social issues, pop culture analysis and all things to do with the entertainment industry.