On Saturday night, my son asked me to play a game of chess with him. He had just lost two games to his dad, and since I never have been a huge chess player, as I said yes to him, I made some comments about how he would likely win because I’m not a very good chess player.
The first thing that happened was that my kids totally called me out on my negative self-talk about my chess-playing abilities. I guess they do occasionally listen to what I try to teach them, after all. The second thing that happened was that I won two games of chess against my 10-year-old. And the third thing that happened was that both my son and my husband made an offhand remark about my intelligence.
The first thing, I’m not going to spend much time on. Parents, there is hope. They absorb more than we think they do, and whether or not that’s a good thing depends on the kind of example we set, doesn’t it?
Now, I want to touch on the second thing. I won two games of chess against my fourth-grade child. Our approach with family games is to play with integrity and teach them lessons of both winning and losing with a positive attitude. Because for me, playing a game is about having fun and being connected. So although we have occasionally put a thumb on the scale to level the playing field at times, allowing do-overs or lessening the consequences of a mistaken action as they learn, for the most part, we do not have a practice in our house of letting others win. Not even when they’re little. We believe that this builds resilience in them and teaches them to love the game for the experience and not just for the victory.
The third thing is what actually inspired today’s post. Last week, I discussed my process of working through a surprising false belief I discovered in myself. The belief I held was this:
Artistic people cannot also be intelligent people.
Ooof.
I had a story created that a person is either artistic, OR they’re smart. Smart people are not artistic and artistic people are not smart. I’m not sure exactly where this belief came to me from, but there is plenty of evidence out there to suggest it has something to do with societal programming.
You see, I was told as a kid who wanted to be an artist that I would never be able to “make a living” as an artist. But that’s all I ever wanted to be, so I had to separate the ideas of “making a living,” and “being an artist.”
I got good grades in high school, but I didn’t take any AP or Honors classes because I chose art, theater and choir experiences instead. I interpreted whatever signals I was getting from teachers, parents, media, etc. as telling me I had to choose.
When I went to college, I wanted to continue doing art and performance, but no one told me how those skills would translate to a “real job” in the “real world.” So I majored in English. I heard that at least with a degree in the liberal arts, such as English, I would be perceived to have high levels of communication skills that would be valued by the types of organizations that hired people for these “real jobs” I had heard so much about.
After college and throughout grad school, I continued to prove my intelligence in the ways that places like these measure. I earned decent grades. I earned my bachelor's degree followed by a master's degree a few years later. All the while, I had this underlying program that told me I couldn’t trust any of it. Maybe that’s why I chose a Master of Fine Arts program in poetry writing. This belief kept me playing small and thinking that I could only do the types of jobs that “starving artists” or “struggling performers” take until they “make it.” So I waited tables. I worked retail. I took an office job that offered me plenty of message-board and blog-reading hours while I thought about what I might want to do “for real.”
Art was for my “spare time.”
Writing poetry was for the rare in-between spaces around “real life.”
Singing stayed in the shower, and my voice came out mostly in church.
I did a lot of reading. When I entered my childbearing years, I researched birth and babies and breastfeeding and discipline. I checked books out from the library about subjects that piqued my curiosity. I talked to smart people, business owners and entrepreneurs and learned about what they were learning. I stayed open, curious, and pursued growth and knowledge like it was going out of style, all while considering myself not smart enough to do anything “real” with any of it.
How heartbreaking is this?
I believed a lie.
I know intellectually that the smartest people in the world are also extremely creative. And the most creative people possess an enviable intelligence when compared to less creative types. (I also happen to believe that we are all creative, no matter how we might identify.) Companies are seeking out people who think differently than the rest. The move to celebrate creative intelligence is happening right now.
How did I change my belief? How did I stop believing this lie?
To be honest, I’m still working on it. But hearing my son and husband call me “smart” the other night reinforced that the belief that I’m not smart was not coming from them. I had a story created that even my husband didn’t see or value my intelligence. It wasn’t him, though. It was me. I put that on myself. I focused on my perceived lack of intelligence. I didn’t value my intelligence. I didn’t think I could be smart and artistic. And I’m intentionally choosing the past tense here because that’s the way I change beliefs, by changing my language. If I talk about it enough as though it’s in the past, eventually it will be.
I also use my fancy English degree to create new language for the new beliefs I’m adopting. I use affirmations and repeat the new ways of interpreting the world around me until I find myself wondering whether I ever believed the old thing at all. As I was writing this, I even came up with a brand new word. Smartistic. When I typed it, though, my spell check didn’t even flinch. Here’s some more evidence that having to choose between creativity and intelligence is a lie.
SMARTISTIC is even in the Urban Dictionary, which means there must be plenty of smartistic people out there in the world. Perhaps I could even be one of those people. In fact, I’m starting to believe that I am. Maybe you are, too.
What do you think about your creativity? Does identifying as an artistic or creative person prevent you from pursuing certain opportunities in your life? Or are you living the smartistic dream embracing an identity as both? What stories are you telling about your abilities? Whether it’s playing chess or taking that higher level math or science class, what could you choose to believe about yourself instead?