Each intelligence has a core set of capacities which are involved in its actual functioning. These are almost like “sub-intelligences”. If you are wanting to improve, enhance, or otherwise strengthen an intelligence, you must work at the level of developing the full range of its capacities.

Study these capacities and think about how you use them in your life and you’ll gain a fuller sense and understanding of your own SelfSmart.

The first task for more fully understanding and enhancing your SelfSmart capacities is learning to speak the unique language of this intelligence; that is, learning to decipher its special jargon, to understand its vernacular, and being willing to immerse yourself in its various operating modalities.

The language and operating modality of SelfSmart is the language of introspection and awareness of internal aspects of the self, including awareness of one’s own feelings, intuitions, thinking processes, “who am I?” quests, spiritual pursuits, beliefs, and values.

Once you understand the different dimensions and aspects of SelfSmart it is important that you focus on using them on a fairly regular basis. As with any capacity we have developed in our life, regular, consistent practice makes perfect.

Following is a description of each capacity and a place for you to type your reflections on how each of the capacities tend to show up in your daily life, AND what you can do to exercise it or use is more.

(Just type your thoughts in the boxes provided. At the bottom is a "print button" so you can save your work.)

CONCENTRATION OF THE MIND

The capacity to concentrate the mind is the ability to bring the mind to a single point of focus and hold it there. Think about times when you really got “caught up” in a novel you were reading and were able to block out everything else going on around you.

MINDFULNESS

Mindfulness is the exact opposite of mindlessness. So
much of our lives are spent on automatic pilot. This
capacity is about training yourself to “stop and smell the
roses”—to pay attention and appreciate the minute
details of even the most mundane experiences.

METACOGNITION

Metacognition is the activity of “thinking about thinking.” Do have inner conversations with yourself? Think about when you have a problem to solve. Do you sometimes talk yourself through it? When you go to the store, do you talk to yourself about things you need to remember to pick up? Do you ever analyze your thinking with the hopes of improving it? Good news! This is not early senility setting in. It is metacognition!

AWARENESS AND EXPRESSION OF FEELINGS

Think about the mood swings of a normal day. Do you know what things tend to bring you to a high and what brings you low? Developing your capacities of awareness and expression of different feelings helps you get a grip on this dynamic and to take charge of your feelings rather then let them run you.

TRANSPERSONAL SENSE OF THE SELF

This is the capacity to identify and appreciate the self that goes beyond the self as an isolated, solitary entity unto itself. Yes, we are all individuals, but that is not the whole story! We are also
part of other people and they are part of us. And, we are
part of the universe and it is part of us!

HIGHER-ORDER THINKING AND REASONING

There are levels within levels within levels to our thinking/ reasoning processes. This is the capacity to consciously move your thinking from “the facts ma’am, nothing but the facts,” to an awareness of process (which goes beyond the mere memorization of the facts), to the “higher-order” ability to integrate learning and use it in everyday life.