As I was reviewing my notes from the interviews I conducted from the past few weeks to learn how people actually learn, I am reminded of the stages of knowledge mastery that I was first introduced to back in my university days.
Have you ever heard of the simple model of progression of learning namely, the “Conscious-Competence learning model”? This model describes the four stages of learning that a person would undergo whenever they are picking up a new skill or acquiring a new domain of knowledge. The four stages are:
- Stage 1 of Unconscious Incompetence
- Stage 2 of Conscious Incompetence
- Stage 3 of Conscious Competence
- Stage 4 of Unconscious Competence
Unconscious Incompetence
In short, this is the stage when you do not know, what you do not know. This is the state of pure ignorance. For myself, I am in this stage for most of the knowledge domains and skill sets available out in the vast world.
For example, if you put me in a room with a veteran gardener, and instructed me to inquire the expert on how to be good at gardening; I would not even know what questions to ask the gardener! As my knowledge on the topic is at an absolute zero, I would not even know where to even begin. I have no bearing to how clueless I am about the topic.
For most of us for most topics, this is where we start from. Luckily for us, amazing encyclopaedic tools such as Wikipedia help us pass this stage fairly quickly in this modern times. A quick read online either on Wikipedia, articles ranked by Google or by watching Youtube videos on the topic of gardening would help give me some information for me to at least find my bearings within that domain. This then brings me to the next stage of Conscious Incompetence.
Conscious Incompetence
After consuming some amount of information on the topic, this is the stage where I realise that for this topic, I am indeed just a noob (read: beginner). I start to understand how much more to the knowledge domain there is, and I start appreciating the level of mastery that others in the domain possess. I am just a level 1 Mage who has just learned basic spells, but I can now see the diverse skill tree that is in front of me, waiting for me to acquire in progression of my path to be a Master Wizard.
At this point, I will feel like that there is so much to learn and the journey towards competency is long and hard. I may be discouraged to continue the journey due to this overwhelming mountain of knowledge that is in front of me. But this is the point that I want to remind myself:
The less you know about something, the greater the opportunity for growth.
At this stage, if I persevere and continue to learn, my rate of growth will be the greatest. Furthermore, at this stage, the steps for acquiring knowledge would be pretty obvious. I will be treading a guided path that others have tread, and the return of my effort-investment would be clear.
Conscious Competence
Congratulations! This is the stage when you finally can become part of the crew, whatever crew that may be. All the effort you have put in to learn and gain knowledge would bear its fruit at this stage. You will realise that you now have achieved a level of knowledge and skill that you will feel confident in applying those that you have acquired at the field. You are conscious, that you have a certain level of competency in the particular domain.
Once I have reached this stage, I should consistently remind myself that though I have achieved some level of proficiency on the subject matter, I need to stay humble.
And if whatever trees upon the earth were pens and the sea was ink, replenished thereafter by seven more seas, the words of God would not be exhausted.
Al Quran, part of verse 27 in chapter 31, Luqman
If “words of God” is a euphemism for “knowledge of the world”, I remind myself that all knowledge that I have gained is but a drop of water in the vast ocean of knowledge. Though I may feel that I have reached competency for some domain, there would always be room for learning. I should keep a curious mind and command humility in my practice of continuous learning.
Unconscious Competence
This is where it gets super interesting. This stage is when you lose consciousness of how competent you are on particular skill. After learning, practicing and repetitive training on something, that acquired skill becomes second-nature to you. You are now able to naturally incorporate those skills with natural fluidity in your behaviour and thinking.
Malcolm Gladwell writes in his book, Outliers that the Beatles had 10,000 hours of practice performing their songs which is why they are such masters performers. Bruce Lee was quoted to have said that “I fear not the man who has practiced 10,000 kicks once, but I fear the man who has practiced one kick 10,000 times.” In both instances, the argument is alluding towards the concept that continuous diligent training will lead one towards genuine mastery of a craft.
This is what I want to strive towards – a natural mastery of particular skills. To achieve this, I have to deploy patience and command a strong will towards continuous learning and improvement in whatever knowledge domain I choose to pursue. I believe that when one has reached this stage in several spheres of learnings, then creative serendipitous discoveries are more bound to occur.
And what an adventure that would be!