Learning Stages

A message from Terry:  Neil Pasricha is a wise, wise man. Faced with a series of disheartening reversals in his life, he instead chose to focus on life’s little delights, eventually gathering many of them into “The Book of Awesome.” It’s fun to leaf through his list of simple delights, including such commonplace gems as perfectly toasted toast and when someone un-jams the photocopier for you.

The one that I’d like to share with you today concerns the day you first realize you can drive.

He reminds us that there are actually four layers involved in learning any new skill:

(1) You don’t know you don’t know. When you watch from the sidelines, that new skill you’d like to acquire doesn’t look all that hard. You’re pretty confident that you could do it just fine, if somebody would just give you a chance.

(2) You know you don’t know. When you finally get a chance to give it a try, you usually find out that the new skill you want to acquire is tougher – and more complicated – than it looks. Making that discovery can be daunting…but it’s a necessary step in the process.

(3) You know you know. If you persist, trying hard and paying close attention to detail, you may finally reach that magical day when you realize that you’ve succeeded in acquiring this new skill! But there’s still one more level of mastery for you to attain…

(4) You don’t know you know. Over time, this hard-won skill becomes second nature, flowing from mind to hands and out into the world as naturally as breathing. At this point, you have truly added that new ability to your skill set and made it your own.

Remember, however, that you couldn’t have gotten to that happy day without working your way through the other layers!

In the past, have you been hard on yourself when you’re working to acquire a new skill? Might an awareness of this list help, the next time you tackle a fresh challenge?