The Learning Cycle

I am inspired tonight!  I was talking to someone tonight and felt I had to write about how we learn.  The learning cycle has always been something that fascinated me.  So much, that I started a questionnaire, got many responses, and was shocked.  In my research I found 93% of people considered themselves to be good drivers.  If this is true, why so many accidents on our roads?  Why are so many people angered so easily on the roads?

Well, everything is probably always relative.

But this then asked me the question, how do we learn.  Well, I refer to the learning cycle / development cycle on the right.  It is definitely not new, and you might have seen this before.  And let us use driving as an example.

When we were young(er), we never realized we had to (one day) drive a car.  We didn't spend a single moment to learn to drive a car.  yes we might have stood on the driver's seat and imaged we are dodging traffic, but that isn't learning.  Anyway, we were unconsciously incompetent.  We didn't know we lacked the experience / knowledge.  Then, as we approached the age of independence, we realized we had to acquire the skill.  We became conscious about our lack of competence.  We became consciously incompetent.  We started practicing, learned the theory, practiced more, got the licence.  We had to think of every gear change, to observe, to indicate, to turn with no hands crossing, etc.  We had to think about everything.  By now we were consciously competent.  And I'm sure (if you have a car), this morning when you drove to work or to the shops, after years of driving, you didn't even think about a single gear change ... it just happened.  There are days that I don't even remember which road I took home, I was too deep in thought.  That is unconscious competence.  You can do something without thinking.

But now, if you want to become the next Michael Schumacher, you would probably have to go through another iteration (or more) to be at a level that might be competitive.

So why do I write about this.  We are all living our lives, as (almost very certainly) we lived it yesterday, or perhaps a month ago.  But we expect different results.  We are not prepared to change our lives, but we expect better lives.  We need to act.  We need have to do something to.

The question therefore is ... what are you unconsciously / unaware of?  What capabilities do you lack?  What will you do about this?

I have found many good books, with wonderful words, brilliant insights, incredible and powerful stories.  But I have never found anything as powerful as man's actions.  It is only then that wonderful and new stories are being written.

Start writing your own story of greatness today ... start by acting!