Learning about Learning

It is important to understand how we, as humans, learn things.  We are powerful machines with immense capabilities so long as we know and understand how we work.  By understanding the learning process and how our minds work and learn, we can achieve successes many deem impossible.

To properly learn something – it has to be committed to the unconscious mind.  This is because in general our conscious mind only has the power to consider 7 pieces of information at any one time.  Our unconscious mind in contrast is unbelievably powerful; it is your unconscious mind that keeps you breathing when you need to, it’s also what you use to drive to work.  So how do we commit something to our unconscious mind?

There are four stages to learning something.  First comes unconscious incompetence, then conscious incompetence, conscious competence and finally unconscious competence.  Let me apply this to the analogy of learning how to use a computer.  Before computers were widely used you had no idea how a computer worked (unconscious incompetence).  Then you bought one and read the manual on how to use it, but you were still struggling with how to use it (conscious incompetence).  Eventually you start to figure out how to operate it, but you have to concentrate on what you’re doing (conscious competence).  And now, today you use your computer on a daily basis without even thinking, you switch it on, send emails without ever consciously considering each action (unconscious incompetence).

Finally it is important to understand the journey of mastery.  George Leonard’s book ‘Mastery’ reveals many incredible discoveries which will truly aid all of our journeys to mastering any topic.  His main theory is that of the ‘The Mastery Curve’, seen below.

When learning a new skill, it is natural to see a big improvement at first but then see your ability decrease slightly before reaching a plateau.  Then after a while you will see another burst of improvement followed by another slight decrease and plateau.  Unfortunately lots of people aren’t blessed with such knowledge, and it is for this reason that a lot of people give up during a plateau, when they are putting in equal efforts and receiving no improvement.  Use your knowledge of the Mastery Curve to keep yourself focussed during those plateau moments.