The most pressing reason why smart people struggle to succeed in life is that they don't hold importance to social skills. Hence, they fail to develop crucial social skills like relationship building, active listening, effective communication, and empathy. This alienates them from the people around them.
Being intelligent has its advantages but can also bring unique problems that only smart people face. From overthinking every situation to struggling with social anxiety, perfectionism, or loneliness – the list of issues that come along with higher levels of intelligence is long.
Intelligent people's brains work 24/7, meaning their minds browse for new information continuously. Higher levels of cognitive abilities lead people to seek new information and examine theories more often. The more the mind searches, the more anxiety it can create if left unchecked.
Intelligent people often override common sense with their considerable brain power — but this isn't always a good thing. Smart people think in situations where they should feel, like in relationships. They may avoid the correct response because it doesn't seem rational when we all know that life isn't always rational.
You might not learn the value of hard work
A number of Quora users mentioned that intelligent people feel like they can get by with less effort than other people. But a high IQ doesn't always lead directly to success, and highly intelligent people may never develop the perseverance required to succeed.
Most people have an average IQ between 85 and 115. Overall, about 98% of people have a score below 130. Only 2% of the population score above that and are considered above average. But your IQ score isn't simply about bragging rights.
Faces that are perceived as highly intelligent are rather prolonged with a broader distance between the eyes, a larger nose, a slight upturn to the corners of the mouth, and a sharper, pointing, less rounded chin.
Key points. High-IQ people often experience social isolation, which can lead to depression or make them act more introverted than is their nature. The very intelligent know they're intelligent, so they're prone to setting lofty expectations for themselves that they can't meet.
The Intersection of Arrogance and Intelligence
But they're often related. Being smart, bright and clever often leads to business success. But having these intellectual gifts also means that one gets used to being right, being perceived as a good problem-solver and being valued by others. And this leads to arrogance.
One possibility is that the genes associated with intelligence also make you more prone to mental illness, but intelligence doesn't directly increase your risk of mental illness. Another possibility is that people with higher IQs are often more socially isolated, which leads to more anxiety and depression.
A popular misconception is that all children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) are naturally smarter and have a higher IQ than children without ADHD. However, there is no correlation between this condition and intelligence.
People with high intelligence tend to share this quality. Intelligent people tend to be better behaved and less aggressive, research reveals. Both boys and girls with higher IQs are less likely to be antisocial than those with lower IQs.
You're the silent type
This isn't necessarily true, and while not all quiet people are necessarily smart, highly intelligent people will often refrain from speaking if they are accessing a situation.
While they might have high standards and big picture concerns, research shows that people with high IQs are actually more likely to be happy; data from the research showed that people with the highest IQs were much happier than those with the lowest IQs.
Ability to learn new topics quickly. Ability to process new and complex information rapidly. Desire to explore specific topics in great depth. Insatiable curiosity, often demonstrated by many questions.
People who have genius traits tend to think about problems and concepts in a much more dynamic way. As a result, they are unlikely to accept information and facts on face value. Instead, they will want to defy and test conventional thinking.
Impulsivity: High intelligence is closely associated with Impulsive behavior which appears childish to some. Children tend to be impulsive and go after things they desire. If you see this in adults, you might consider the adult to be childish.
While there is no actual relationship between attractiveness and academic performance in the real world, there was "a strong positive correlation" between attractiveness and perceived intelligence, as well as perceived academic performance and perceived conscientiousness.
Then they had to take an intelligence test. There was no relationship found between the participants' temper and their actual intelligence levels. So you could, in fact, be a smart angry person. However, those with a high temper were found, overall, to overestimate how intelligent they actually were.
Although being intelligent — both in a traditional sense and an emotional one — can make life easier in many ways, it can also make life much lonelier.
While many endeavors of geniuses lead to remarkable results, it doesn't always come, worry-free. In fact, a common trait that geniuses have is the tendency to overthink things and worry, incessantly.
A study published in the journal Sleep found that sleep is important for cognitive performance and that individuals who have better sleep quality tend to have higher intelligence scores.
While there are many signs to indicate someone may be highly intelligent, the most common are a pleasant attitude and hardworking nature, excellent memory and recall capacity, good decision-making and problem-solving skills, high curiosity, good language proficiency, and high emotional intelligence.