On Underachieving

I work with a lot of folks who have a great deal more ability than they ever utilize. I often find myself scratching my head….”This person is extremely capable, but they’ve gone for years only making minimum wage.” They never ask for a raise. They put up with mistreatment in their dead-end job. They are not assertive in their personal relationships (they make no demands on their friends or spouses or boyfriends or girlfriends).

Sometimes, they had a learning disability, and came to believe that they were incompetent. Sometimes they had a speech problem (problems learning how to talk). Sometimes they had problems in developing motor skills (problems learning how to walk, had medical conditions requiring braces on their legs, had an early high fever resulting in poor motor skills, experienced a lack of oxygen at birth resulting in poor motor skills, and so forth). Sometimes, they were viewed by a parent as being completely incompetent, and told that they would be a failure. The reasons are numerous and very personal to the individual.

But the upshot, is that a person’s self-perception becomes their reality. Be willing to fail. You’ll gain more wisdom from failure than you ever will from success. God didn’t give you the skills and abilities that you have for no reason.

Long Term Psychological Effects of Learning Disabilities

Many folks with dyslexia or other learning disabilities come to believe that they are ‘defective’ in some way.  They often think they are ‘stupid.’  In my experience, this is not the case at all….they just have trouble with one or more specific tasks, but can be highly intelligent.

You might find this link interesting with a list of famous people with dyslexia.

Sometimes, they will have what I call a ‘defectiveness complex.’  In other words, they interpret most of their actions and things that happen in the world as more evidence that they are defective on some level.  A ‘complex’ has an overiding effect on interpretation of events, and is often strongly defended.  So, someone with a defectiveness complex will reject any and all information to points to the fact that they are not defective, and automatically accept any evidence that may point to the fact that they are defective.

These kind of complexes often take years of treatment and direct challenges to change.  But, they can be changed.  A person can come to believe that they are intelligent and effective in many areas of life, while having difficulty in one specific area.  Again, this takes a lot of challenges to the complex and a lot of evidence which contradicts the notion that a person is ‘defective.’  It also helps to understand the origin of this type of thinking, and how information is filtered through the ‘complex.’

This type of ‘complex’ can develop in other ways than dyslexia, or a learning disability, and I will write more on this in the future.