Early in my journey, my trainer walked me through the Levels of Competence. I’d heard them before, but for the journey I’d embarked upon, they were especially relevant.
Levels of Competence:
Source: TylzaeL
1. Unconscious Incompetence
Simply put, this is when you don’t know what you don’t know. We’ve all seen people like this, or been in the situation ourselves. People can’t necessarily fault us — we are too new and green at whatever we are doing to know what we are doing wrong. This is the initial stage of learning.
2. Conscious Incompetence
This is probably where you hope to be — you are aware that you need to improve. For me, it was that I recognized how badly I really sucked! But the good news is that you know you don’t know, and you are trying to get better.
3. Conscious Competence
This is that point when things “just click”. You know you know. The hard work and effort comes together and you can do whatever you were trying to do. The pieces fall together like they should but it’s not quite inherently natural.
4. Unconscious Competence
You just know.
There is no thought in what you are doing…you don’t have to walk through the steps mentally; you just do it. You are able to do things because you know how to do them. It’s innate — maybe you don’t know why or how. It just happens. This is where I want to be….Unconscious Competence.
And this is the chronicle of the Journey to Unconscious Competence.