Ah Ha! Here’s Why Your Life Is Not Going As Planned

Sound familiar?

That comes directly from inside your head. It also comes directly from Deborah Ruf, Ph.D., who writes the Substack Gifted Through the Lifespan, so that you will start to see yourself, and others around you, in a different light as you learn how high intelligence, coupled with our background shapes our views and actions.

Deborah Ruf, Ph.D., High Intelligence Specialist

Professionals, communicators, and gifted adults—all three of us separately or combined in one person, share an obsession for productivity, planning, goal setting, connecting with words, overthinking, and feeling responsible for everything no matter how overwhelming, such as climate change and world peace.

Every day and every month, without exception, we keep hitting the wall of reality and all of the planning tools, apps, and good intentions end up being better or worse than planned. That wall of reality is you, more often than not.

Dr. Ruf presents truths that help sort this out. Does this also sound familiar? I had no idea then that any of my problems started with how I was being and how I thought I had all the answers. We take ourselves with us wherever we go. It’s us we need to figure out. If we think we can just keep whining and complaining and feeling sorry for ourselves our whole life, we won’t get what we want. And that’s self-actualization.

If you have already discovered Dr. Ruf or if you are still searching for guides and wisdom to an entire life as a gifted professional and communicator, start with the article Stuck in Right, So Why Was My Life Not Going As Planned?

Rarely does she tell her own story because of her research and focus on telling the stories of hundreds of people she has been studying for an entire lifetime. In this article, you learn about her journey. We all have a hero’s journey and learning how to communicate that can be a struggle as well. We are the hero of the life story we experience. We go through multiple stages of transformation to get what we think we want out of life. That’s a topic for another article if you care to comment and care to share your own hero’s journey.

There’s a lot to love and learn with Dr. Ruf and here are my five takeaways from her books, articles, and emails, plus questions for your comment:

1. You Can Always Eat an Elephant if You Take Small Bites.

The most recent masterpiece by Dr. Ruf is her 2023 book, a longitudinal study called The Five Levels of Gifted Children Grown Up: What They Tell Us. She is turning her overly-large book into three smaller, more focused volumes just in case potential readers are daunted by a large book. In her Substack articles, she cuts up sections into even smaller pieces so you can eat the elephant and feel satisfied, until hungry again.

2. “Did you know that you can come from a home that had enough money and parents who stayed married and yet live in total chaos throughout your childhood? “

The Five Levels of Gifted Children Grown Up has an entire middle section on how we develop our viewpoints. There’s a lot to cover when it comes to unpacking questions about why you are the way you are and what is the real you as opposed to that other you—the you that others and society want you to be, for their purposes.

3. Identifying as a professional or a skilled communicator and storyteller is easy. It’s harder to see your giftedness.

Dr. Ruf shares this in common with our community of Gifted Professionals and Communicators: My audiences are full of smart people who want to know more about giftedness. I’ve found that it would be unusual for any audience members not to be gifted themselves. So, the interest of most audience members is about how gifted children turn out as adults and what does being super smart really means regarding future social, emotional, and fiscal well-being?

4. How smart or advanced are people in each level of gifted?

People within each Level of Gifted are capable of learning more than the typical, average, or majority learners during the K-12 school years when the conditions are good for them.

How rapidly could the child progress through the academics of grades K-6 lessons and objectives?

Level One (moderately gifted) ~ 4 years (or about 2/3 of the standard time)

• Then what happened to them as adults? How much do previous background and “good fit” affect their options and choices by the time they finish high school?

Level Two (highly gifted) ~ about 3 years (or about ½ the standard time)

• Then what happened to them as adults? In this Conventionally Gifted range, what distinguishes you?

Level Three (exceptionally gifted) ~ 2 years (or about 1/3 the standard time)

• Then what happened to them as adults? What would you notice or look for in this Exceptionally Gifted adult?

Level 4 (exceptionally to profoundly gifted) ~ 1–2 years or less (or about 1/6 the standard time) particularly in their strength areas

• Then what happened to them as adults? What makes this level The Outliers and the exceptionally to profoundly gifted? Why do they need true intellectual peers?

Level Five (profoundly gifted) ~ less than 1 year

• Then what happened to them as adults? Why were these the ones teachers forever remember as being the smartest students they had ever experienced?

5. Of all the subject experts and thought leaders in neuroscience, professionalism, communication, and giftedness, why is Dr. Ruf connecting with our community so well?

Credit Mike Erskine on Unsplash