4 Stages of Learning Anything

The 4 Stages of learning a new skill

The four stages of learning is a process that you have gone through every time you’ve learned something new in your life.

Noel Burch developed the concept of the “Four Stages of Learning Any New Skill” in the 1970s. Many attribute the model to Abraham Maslow, but it does not appear in his major works.

Think about when you were learning to drive a car and how clumsy you felt.

Think about how difficult the gear changing was and how the car never seemed to go where you wanted it to go. It seemed harder than you imagined it would be, yet when you rode with your parents, you always thought driving was easy.

Today, you can probably drive easily and confidently without having to think about what to do next. An essential principle in NLP during the change process concerns learning.

Performing without thinking

The main outcome of learning any skill or activity is acquiring the ability or competence that unconsciously allows you to perform the task.

For example, a Formula One racing driver, who is on his way to a victory in a world championship, maybe consciously thinking of winning the race or responding to the applause and celebrations once he stands on the winner’s podium.

Yet, he is unconscious of his skilful driving ability that will eventually propel him over the finish line into first place. To drive at 300KM/H around a complicated track with other drivers requires a high level of skill and ability as a driver.

The processes by which these skills and abilities are learned normally take you through four learning stages:

Unconscious incompetence, conscious incompetence, conscious competence, and then unconscious competence.

Let’s take a look at the four stages of learning

Unconscious incompetence — in This stage, you don’t know how to do something and are normally unaware that you don’t know. You have never tried to do it. For example, if you have never flown an aeroplane before, you have no idea of flying one now. It’s crucial to recognize your incompetence and the value of the new skill before progressing to the next stage.

Conscious incompetence — when you recognize your inability to fly as you learn to read instruments and handle controls. You struggle to maintain level flight and to bank the aircraft under the instructions of your trainer.

You enter into conscious incompetence at this stage, and this is where you realize you are not yet competent. Here, you learn all that you didn’t know and begin to acquire the skill of flying.

Conscious competence — You have now acquired some competence and knowledge of flying. Here you move into the conscious competence stage. This is where you can fly, but only by consciously remembering and focusing on what you have seen and learned. You have not reached the stage of being a good pilot.

Your new skills still require you to pay attention through intense concentration constantly. As a result, improvement at this stage is slow as you continually add to your skill through constant improvement.

Unconscious competence — when you can perform a skill effortlessly, without conscious thought or focused effort.

Instead, actions have become habitual and automatic, leaving your conscious mind free.

Actions become “second nature”

As a result, people who have achieved unconscious competence in what they do, are not aware of how they do.

They don’t need to pay conscious attention to the tasks they are doing. Instead, it’s as though they are functioning in autopilot mode.

Their subconscious mind carries out all the tasks necessary to get the job done.

This allows the conscious mind to focus on other tasks, like chatting with passengers while driving or reading instruments during landing.

Learning any new skill can take you to the unconscious competence stage.

The goal of all learning should be to take you to a point where what you have learned to do becomes “second nature”.

There really is no limit to what you can achieve; it’s all up to you and how much time and effort you are willing to put into the learning stages.

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