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The Stages of Learning

January 25 Dawn

Have you experienced a time in the past when you thought to yourself ‘I’m never going to understand this’ and then all of a sudden, you have a ‘lightbulb moment’, all the pieces just come together?

Many people give themselves w-a-y too hard a time when they’re learning new information. Learning anything for the first time, you are a beginner again.

It was a dude called Noel Burch who developed The Four Stages of Learning back in the 70’s: it is a model, a theory it offers up suggestions as to how we learn.

So before you get frustrated. Give up. Pull your hair out. Quit.

Here they are…

Stage 1: Unconscious incompetence

You don’t know what you don’t know.

Think of something that you’re really good at now, there will have been a time in the past where you knew nothing about it and were completely unware you needed to learn it.

Stage 2: Conscious incompetence

You know about it, but aren’t very good at it.

Driving is a perfect example of this. If you’re driver do you remember the learning, and how clumsy it was?

It’s during this stage you feel the learning is slow, because you’re consciously aware of all the mistakes you are making, you know you’re not good at it, yet!

However, this is the fastest learning stage. Your brain is making sense, creating clarity out of your felt confusion. Unknown to the conscious ‘you’, your brain is loving the new information (our brains love new things keep feeding it) and getting the information ‘down good’ for you.

Then comes stage three: Conscious competence

You know it well, you are still having to concentrate.

You have the learning, however you may feel that you are having to really focus and concentrate. This is a slower learning stage than stage two, the new learning is not yet habitual and consistent. Mistakes may still be made, however slow you may think it is, progress is still happening.

Stage 4: Unconscious competence

This is where the learning has become habitual and automatic. Your unconscious mind takes over, leaving your conscious mind free for something else.

So for drivers, consider the stage of conscious incompetence, when you had to focus your attention on all the detail. When you drive now, is it not possible you are able to drive, talk and listen to radio all at the same time? Your unconscious mind is on automatic. Have you ever driven from A to B, and you can’t remember the journey.

Okay, why am I sharing this with you.

Give yourself a break, cut yourself some slack.

If you are new to all this personal development melarkey, your brain needs a settling in period, it needs to create the new routes. Your always gaining, even if you feel it’s slow: it’s happening, you may not be aware on a conscious (the hear and now) of it taking place!

Stage 5: Mastery

Ever watched a ‘master’ at work? This is stage is beyond Stage 4, it’s the ‘flow’ state. Beautiful to watch.

Goal Setting and Timescales

January 23 Dawn

Don’t Let Time Freak You Out

Setting timescales can be extremely motivating for some, or feel like a heavy cloud looming in the distance for others.

Setting a deadline can inspire, help you stay focused and ensure that you are taking action, staying committed, working smart and deliberately leaping over obstacles and barriers in your way.

Or, you could get freaked out, because things aren’t going to plan, it’s not happening quick enough, or you’re going to miss the timescale and not have achieved what you set out to do.

Realistic Expectations

When we set out on a goal, we usually have very high expecations of what we are going to have completed by a certain time.

However some us fall into the ‘too high expectations’ category. There is nothing wrong at all with setting goals that require you to push yourself. The problems can arise when you set the goal too high for where you are currently at.

That’s not an invitation to set them too low, you’ll get bored and not be motivated.

Your goals remember should be out of reach, but not out of sight.

Our expectations get us into trouble more often than we’d like to admit. If we expect something to go well and it doesn’t, we feel angry and disappointed. If we expect results by a certain date and it doesn’t happen due to circumstances beyond our control, we can lose all hope and give up because it seems futile to continue. I’m sure you’ve experienced situations like these before – most of us have.

While it’s favorable to set a timeline for completion of your goal, may I suggest you don’t become emotionally attached to the time?

I mean don’t get hooked on the idea of certain things happening at a certain time – especially if those “things” are largely out of your control.

Instead, focus more on your actions than the results. Set a timeline for completion of each of your actions, rather than the results you see from your action steps.

Also, be sure not to set unrealistic timelines.

Don’t create more stress for yourself by taking on a massive project and expecting to complete it within a few days. Moderate, consistent actions will be more effective than getting burned out.

Evaluate and Review Your Goals

January 23 Dawn

If you’ve worked on the planning and preparation, you’ll have set yourself some timelines of when you want your goal (including the smaller goals) to be completed.

Obviously, you may never think you have to review, especially if you can see and feel your goals working.

But what if you don’t? And what if the deadline comes and goes, and the goal is not achieved?

I would like to suggest to you that you evaluate and review your goals on a regular basis, at least once a week.

Not Seeing the Results?

This can be demotivating or the point where some say ‘what’s the use, nothing is happening‘.

Assuming that you are taking action, 100% committed and have not ‘sold up’, this would be a great time for a review.

Also, you may not see the results right away.

There is a great book title called ‘You’ll See It When You Believe It, Or You’ll Believe It When You See It’. We can get hung up on the not seeing, I know many of us want concrete evidence that all the action we are taking is worth it, but life isn’t like that.

Why Review and Evalute?

Sometimes you’ll notice small results, but not as much as you’d like so you need to tweak your plans slightly to adjust the outcome. Or you’ll figure out that changing your approach on one simple thing will explode your results like crazy!

Evaluation is a worthwhile activity because it can help keep you honest about your efforts, it can reveal holes in your plans and it can inspire you to keep going when you notice even moderate results happening.

There are two types of evaluation you should do periodically. The first involves frequent evaluation of your daily actions.

Try Not to Leave Them Hanging

Commitment at the time when you aren’t seeing results is crucial. Where it may seem easier to ‘put them aside and forget’, this is time when you need to have that accountability ‘chat’ with yourself. Or find someone who you can talk to. Someone who is rooting for you, they may be able to offer another perspective, or help you with ideas.

Leaving them hanging because it’s getting ‘tuff, is such a waste (in my opinion). You could be one action away from a breakthrough.

Every one to two weeks, take a few moments to answer these questions with honesty:

Are you sticking to the plan?
How can your plan be improved?
Have you needed to use Plan B?
If so, how did that work out for you?
Where can you improve on your orginal plan?
Do you need to modify anywhere?
If so, are they working better for you?
Have your results met your expectations so far?
If not, why not?
What can you do to improve your results (go back to the orginal who, why, where, when, how, can you add to it?)

The other type of evaluation can be done monthly or even quarterly; and it should focus more on your long-term progress rather than your daily actions.

Answer these questions:

Are your plans moving you in the right direction?
Is your ultimate goal still the same, or are you considering a change in direction?
Can you think of any ways to improve upon your original plans?
What are you learning about yourself through this process?
Have you developed a stronger appreciation of any aspect of yourself?
Which of your qualities and habits still need improvement?
How can you begin to expand your potential and stretch your limits?
Are you beginning to think of even larger goals you can achieve now?

Make Your Goals Actionable

January 23 Dawn

Goal, Plan, Action

Now that you’ve written down your goals specifically.

Chunked them into smaller goals and written your plan.

It’s time for massive (fearless) action!

If there is something you can do now (this second) towards a goal, go and do it. Take the time. This post isn’t going anywhere, that is taking action, I’ll still be here when you come back.

Now, there are some that say ‘all successful people take action’, I say all ‘motivated people take specific actions, which leads to successful outcomes‘.

Why do I say that?

Because some people take plenty action, but they aren’t taking the right action, in the right way at the right time.

Or they toe dip, play about in the baby pond, they research their goals, find what they need to apply and then do nothing.

Assuming that you have written down your goals ‘the what’, and you have identified the ‘why, who, where, when and how’, it’s time to act.

It’s Time for Boldness

Your action may include a period of discovery, learning, researching, discussing, identifying, learning and adding to your actions to take. Some people can get caught up on the ‘prepare’ stage, when in fact what they need is to move and motivate themselves further.

For example, assume you want to change career, you have identified ‘key’ people you want to talk to. You could have a list of names you’re sitting on. Yet, for some reason you aren’t doing nothing with it. The action you may need to take is connecting with these people via email, phone or social network.

Action, especially when heading into the unknown can be a little daunting. But your plan is worthless, if you don’t take the steps to apply it.

Also many get stuck in the planning and preparing part. They spend a long time ‘thinking’ and ‘talking’ about it, and don’t see the results because the plan is not moving, there is no energy to it. Thinking and talking is fine, however there has to come a point of action.

For example, assume you’re wanting to lose weight.

You have set the goal to attend a gym or a class. You are taking massive action on the healthy eating part, but the gym goal is sitting there doing nothing. Review the goal again, ask yourself what is stopping you taking action on this step? Is it a fear of visiting a gym for the first time? Do you feel ashamed or embarrassed to attend? Worried others will look at you? Money?

If you do this process, you may find you need to review and evaluate the original goal. Go back to the ‘who, what, why, where, when’ is there anything you can add to the goal to ensure that action will take place?

Gaining Momentum

Energy is built from energy.

As soon as you start to take action, you will probably see yourself getting quicker and taking more. Why? It’s all these small steps that build momentum.

If you’ve already laid the groundwork, it’s important to focus on productive actions; the actions that will carry the most power, the actions that will inspire the greatest results.

Additionally, you should identify action steps to be taken daily, weekly, and monthly.

Remember, goal achievement is a process – you can’t take action just once and hope it works.

Most goals will require consistent effort, specific action steps taken day after day, week after week, month after month! Identify the things you can do on a regular basis to keep your plans moving forward.

Daily actions are usually small to moderate in scale but hold the power of duplication and accumulation. The more you do them, the more effective they become.

Weekly actions are usually a bit larger in scale, take a little longer to complete, and involve an element of risk. They are usually the most proactive in the sense that they help you face your fears and push forward determinedly. They would include things like releasing your creations to the public, or increasing your business marketing efforts by attracting attention to your products or services. These bolder actions usually bring about bigger results.

Monthly actions are things you do to keep yourself on track, like evaluate your progress and readjust your plans if necessary. Monthly actions can also include extraneous activities not vital to your goal except in peripheral ways. This can include networking, expanding your market reach, working on your personal development, reading, learning, researching, etc.

Make a list of the most productive actions you determine should be done daily, weekly and monthly.

It’s important to note that you are not setting a schedule with this exercise; you are simply identifying key, productive action steps that you can take on a daily, weekly and monthly basis. Don’t get caught up wondering how you can find time to do all this, or whether a certain task should be done daily or weekly. Simply put down a general idea of the most productive actions that you can think of. You can always add to this list or change it later on.

Break Down Your Goals Into Doable Chunks

January 23 Dawn

You’ve probably heard this ‘how do you eat an elephant?’

Answer: one bite at a time. (Unless you’re veggie like me, we wouldn’t want to eat an elephant. Marrow? Slab of Tufu?)

Anyhoo…

Goals and chunking, this process is so simple. You take the large goal and break it down into smaller sizes, which are more manageable.

Why?

It makes it easier, more fun, motivating (as you tick of the smaller goals on route to your larger goal).

Every large goal is made up of smaller parts.

Sometimes these smaller parts are different facets of a bigger goal, and sometimes they are simply identical, measured increments of the big goal.

For instance:

A goal of being confident in social situations, can include smaller goals, or clear steps that can be carried out once or repeated over time.

You may include: visit a new place every week for 12 months, join a class or do a little volunteering. You may choose to seek coaching or attend a confidence building class, use hypnotherapy. You may enlist other people to your goal (if they are willing) and attend low key social situations, with them beside you for the first few time. You may read about building confidence, buy tapes or join a support group.

Again, each goal or ‘chunk’ would work really well with a timeframe, commitment and action.

It also give you space to look at what is working and what isn’t, and to decide if you need to change tactics or review the goal.

A goal of changing career, could include researching possibilities, speaking to individuals carrying out the role you wish to carry out, a time spent learning knowledge, working on your CV or researching possible employers. You may include family and friends and build a contact list or spend time with a careers advisor.

These are all part of the larger goal, but breaking them down or chunking them makes them easier to work on.

Of course some goals won’t include chunking. They won’t require that much detail. You may have already done a lot of the leg work and research.

For each goal you have written, try and chunk them up into 8 or 10 parts. Apply the action to take, the timetime and commit.

Goal Setting: Plan For The Worst, Expect the Best

January 22 Dawn

The WORST!

Okay, I’ll be gentle with ‘ya, let’s change it to ‘plan for the best, expect the unexpected’.

Let’s assume you’ve kicked off on a goal and things are going great, everything is going to plan. Then for whatever reason you slam into a literal brick wall. Something happens which you didn’t plan for. You didn’t see it coming.

If this has happened to you before, you may have lost motivation or drive because the brick wall seems like such a large obstacle in your path.

As much as we’d like to hope that things will always go according to plan, we know better.

Life is not planned.

We can’t expect that the entire universe and all the energy bouncing around in it is going to sit in alignment with what we want. If that sounds a little woowoo to you, read this (it’s a little woo-ier to some, but you’ll get it, and clearly explains what that means.)

The goal, for the goals is to always expect the best, but to have covered all bases. That means at least spending time on working out the answers to ‘what would I do if … happened?’

Call it the back up plan, the contingency, the other route. Whatever suits you.

Having a “Plan B” for every step of your journey can save you a lot of time, not to mention frustration!

Now, Plan B is not ‘if this doesn’t work, then I’ll do this’. The goal is the same. The different route to it is plan B!

Imagine the difference between feeling stuck because your path is blocked, or calmly switching gears and moving to Plan B. It can make or break the fulfillment of your goals.

I love the story of the train driver who comes to a broken tree convering the railway line. The driver doesn’t keep banging into the tree, he has to think of other ways to get moving again. He could remove the tree, ask for help, reverse and find another route. It sometimes isn’t the preferred route, but he’s committed to getting the passengers to their destination, even if it means adding a little extra time to the journey.

It’s easy to forget that there are numerous paths leading to any desired outcome.

While we might be attracted to one path over another, ultimately the outcome is the most important thing, right?

In order to ensure momentum, take a few minutes to prepare an alternate plan for each part of your goal. Focus not only on alternate paths to the final goal, but alternate activities for each of your action steps.

Here is a simple way to identify viable alternate activities: as you review each step, consider the question,

“What would I do if this step or activity was not possible?”