Today’s quote:
“A life spent making mistakes is not only more honorable but more useful than a life spent doing nothing.” – George Bernard Shaw
Those of us that make mistakes are delving into areas that we are unaccustomed to. This is the very nature of “stretching” ourselves to achieve something. These “somethings” are the goals we set for ourselves. It doesn’t matter what goals you set for yourself, they are yours. Making mistakes is a natural part of growth.
Here’s something I learned in the Army. When learning something new, we first crawl. This crawling is reading about the thing we are attempting to learn. We learn all of the parts of a task required to perform it and we begin walking ourselves through these steps. This is the place we called unconscious incompetence. We don’t know what we don’t know.
The next phase is the walking phase. At this point, we have a pretty good grasp of a task and are moving through the performance of it at a quicker pace. We are still making mistakes, but we now are at the point where we know what we don’t know or what is called conscious incompetence.
The walking phase is followed by the running phase. This is the phase where we can perform the task but still need to give some thought to it while we are performing the task. This is the area called conscious competence.
The final phase of learning is the sprint phase or unconscious competence. We are now at the point of mastery where we are so proficient in a task that we can achieve a “flow”. The task is completed without thinking. It is automatic. This is the final phase of task acquisition known as unconscious competence. We own this task and it has become part of our toolbox.
Keep each of these phases in mind when you are attempting to learn something new. Plan on making mistakes. This is a natural part of the learning process and is required if we are to gain from the achievement of learning or taking on a new project in our lives.
That’s it for today folks!
Until next time…
Dave
Daily Ramblings... 