When you learn any skill, there are a number of stages that you go throw in order to learn that particular skill. This is the same for any skill that you can think of. Being aware of this process will greatly increase your ability to learn a new skill and also allows you to assess your progress when learning skills.
Stages of Awareness
There are 4 stages of awareness. Each stage represents a milestone in learning a skill. The stages are:
- Unconsciously unaware
- Consciously unaware
- Consciously aware
- Subconsciously aware
When learning any skill, you go through each of these stages. So it is a process of sorts:
For this article I’ll be using the skill ‘riding a bike’ as an example. But these steps are more interesting and helpful when you are faced with skills such as management skills, coaching skills or even the skill of sensing other people’s feelings.
As a small note, where it reads ‘unaware’ you may also read ‘unable’, since I am talking about skills that you are able or unable to utilize.
Stage 1 – Unconsciously unaware
Whenever you are in a situation where you do not know that you do not have a skill, you are unconsciously unaware. If we look at our example of riding a bike, this would be if you had never seen anyone else ride a bike and never saw a bike in your life. How could you know you would be able to have this skill? You are unconsciously unaware.
Stage 2 – Consciously Unaware
You have just seen someone ride a bike. Maybe you have even tried to ride one yourself and failed miserably. This means you have just discovered that you do not posses this skill. So you now know there is a skill that you do not posses, but others do. You are now consciously unaware. You know what you can’t do.
Stage 3 – Consciously aware
If you have studied the skill and put effort into learning it, you will sooner or later arrive at stage 3. This stage is where you possess the skill, but in order to use it you must really focus. When riding a bike, this amounts to being able to ride your bike, but no have a conversation at the same time. It just takes too much of your energy and focus to perform the skill. You must be fully consciously involved when utilizing the skill.
Stage 4 – Subconsciously aware
Finally, after being in stage 3 for a while and utilizing your skill consciously, you will attain a subconscious ability to perform this skill. Being subconsciously aware means you can perform a skill without having to fully focus on it. It is just there, in your toolbox and you use it when you need it.
When we look at riding a bike, most of us have no problem performing this skill. You can do it subconsciously. While when you just started, you had to really focus on the right speed, steering and braking…
Thu, Dec 24, 2009
Self Improvement