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.
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