Simple enough to say. Hard to own. We spend our whole lives judging and being judged by what we do—both good and bad. In our culture, mistakes are most often perceived as bad. Although lessons ensue, it’s the mistake—not the lesson—that is most remembered and internalized. It’s time to flip that paradigm. Grab hold of the lesson. Embrace the mistake. We fail forward. Without failure or mistakes, there is no learning. And isn’t learning what it’s all about? (No, it’s really NOT the hokey pokey!)
The learning model described as “Four Stages for Learning Any New Skill” shows that we begin in a state of unconscious incompetence. Then we move to conscious incompetence (where we know how much we don’t know). Then we hit the level of conscious competence, being very tuned in to the process of our work or skill.
Our end goal is to become unconsciously competent—to do what we do with complete ease, in the flow. In other words, we begin as a child who has no idea of what she knows or doesn’t know, nor of what can be known. We progress toward mastering our lives with thoughtfulness to living authentically with little or no effort.
I’m exploring this at my training this week at The Coaches Training Institute. Pretty intense stuff, and very important to becoming an authentic person and coach. I invite you to contact me at chris@capiche.us for a sample coaching session. I would be delighted to give you a complimentary 30-minute coaching session so you can begin to reach your life’s goals!
