Embarking on a journey to master a new skill? Understanding the five stages of learning can be your roadmap. Let's delve into these stages and discover how they can be effectively applied to enhance your learning process.
There are five distinct stages to learning anything new
Being aware of these learning stages and knowing that what you’re going through is completely normal may help you push through the sticking points of the learning process and keep going, even when you might have otherwise given up hope and quit.
Stage 3: Conscious competence
During this stage, you know how to reach your goal but have to concentrate hard on your task.
- Nothing is automatic. You have to practice diligently and often or risk forgetting what you’ve learned. Conscious competence is when you remember techniques, but you have to think before executing them.
Stage four: Unconscious Competency
Fully internalize all that you’ve learned
- You can execute your new skills automatically and without having to think beforehand
- Reaching this stage starts to feel fun and rewarding – like all your hard work has finally paid off
Stage 1: Unconscious incompetence
This is the most fragile stage of learning for two reasons: it’s common to believe you’re further along than you are, and because you think you know more than you do during this stage, what you know is inadequate and unlikely to give you the results you want
- Many people make excuses during this early stage instead of confronting reality
Stage five: Conscious unconscious competence
You can teach what you do unconsciously to others
- It requires a deep understanding of what you’ve learned and an ability to communicate it to beginners
- The younger you learned, the less likely you will be able to teach well
- High-level athletes that have been training since they were young are not always the best teachers
- Some of the best coaches are people who learned their skill or sport slightly later in life
- Don’t get discouraged, keep going
Stage 2: Conscious incompetence
Once you get past the unconscious incompetence stage, you arrive at the second stage of learning, or the conscious incompetence stage.
- This is when you realize all you don’t know and begin to learn the rules of the game, and try to apply those rules, and as you do, get more in your head
- Most people get overwhelmed at the magnitude of their undertaking and daunted by the long road ahead
