The Four Phases Of Learning

There is an old adage that says, “If you continue doing what you have always done, you will continue getting what you have always gotten.” Today, if you continue to do what you have always done, you may not get what you have always gotten. That which was true may not be true any longer in our modern world of change, change, change.

Change is the standard of business. Bill Gates said that we should expect more change in the next decade than used to occur in a half century. Because of the rapidity of change, the most expensive sentence in business is probably: “We have always done it that way."

While you may have never heard anyone say those exact words, consider the opposite. Have you ever heard, “How do we do what we don’t know how to do ... and may not even want to do?”

We have always done what we do, the way we do it, because “that way” worked well enough, and often enough, to go through the process of creating a habit.

We have all conditioned ourselves to automatically do some things one way … whether using a mouse with the right hand ... or stepping on the brake with the left foot ... or simply the way we tie our shoestrings. These are examples of habits that we formed to make life easier. Many habits serve us well, while others … well, you know what it is like to break a bad habit.

Since habits are learned behaviors, not instinctive reactions, how do you learn other ways? Is it easier to replace a bad habit or implant a good habit? How do we learn to do things differently from the way we have always done things? How do we stop doing what we do, the way we have always done it? Should we?

Habits, like addictions, frequently have a negative connotation. Yet habits per se are not necessarily bad. Without habits, things that were difficult to learn would remain difficult to do.

Think back to when you were learning to drive a car. Can you remember when you could not automatically signal for a left turn, look over your shoulder without drifting out of your lane, while holding a coffee cup of hot coffee in your right hand, without skipping a beat in the pattern of a conversation on a cell phone, or the pattern of traffic, and ... all at the same time?

The next time you put on a pair of shoes with laces, try to tie the knot quickly and easily … after reversing which lace you put on top of the other? Sounds simple, doesn’t it? We don’t think about things like tying shoe laces because we formed habits to make such repetitive actions almost automatic. We do certain things a certain way, because that way has previously worked well, because we don’t have to think about how to do it, because … why should we try a different way that may not work as easily?

When considering habits, the easiest place to start is by identifying the four phases everyone goes through whenever they create a habit. Those four phases are unconscious/incompetence, conscious/incompetence, conscious/competence, and unconscious/competence.

When we progress through the four phases with a repetitive act, we develop a habit. When we progress through the four phases to enhance a skill or ability, we develop a mastery. The four phases have been part of our learning processes from infancy to fancy degrees.

Both habits and mastery begin in the first phase which I jestingly call oblivion. Oblivion is when you are unconscious and incompetent. You simply do not know that you do not know. One of my mentors calls this phase “the most dangerous place to be” because this is where you can get blind-sided.
The plastics industry was in phase one when they did not know that BPA, the chemical used to make plastic hard, would act like a hormone (xenogen), disrupting the normal maturation process of children. The full consequences of this act of oblivion will not be known for years, perhaps decades.

I am looking for a clinical study on using electrolyzed water to remove xenogens. If you know of such a study, please advise me. I already have a variety of clinical studies that document using electrolyzed water to remove other man made toxins. Xenogens are different because the immune system does not appear to recognize them as abnormal.

When a toddler sticks a bobby pin into an electrical outlet, he is in phase one. Usually, the potentially lethal shock tells the toddler not to do that again. However, my eldest son stuck metal objects in electrical outlets repeatedly. He didn’t cry from pain following such incidents so I could only conclude that his thrill at watching the flash of light exceeded any electrical shock he may have felt. Of course, we soon put safety covers on all the electrical outlets. My toddler son may have been in phase one, but his mother and I were not.

Not all consequences from phase one are dangerous or detrimental. For example, at some point in your life you did not know that helicopters existed. You were in phase one regarding helicopters. You may have been a few months old, or a few years old, before you saw a helicopter. Not knowing that you did not know that helicopters existed had no impact on your life.

However, as soon as you know that helicopters exist, then you progress from phase one to phase two: you know helicopters exist but cannot fly one. We all have many things in phase two that do not create impediments in our lives. For example, I know that Boeing 727s exist because I have take flights in them. However, I do not know how to pilot a 727, nor do I want to learn to do so. I am quite contented to remain in phase two regarding flying airplanes.

I am also in phase two regarding hang gliders. I know about hang gliders but do not know how to fly them. Unlike my phase two perspective on flying a Boeing 727, I sometimes imagine myself soaring silently through the air while hanging below a huge wing. But ... I don’t want to fly a hang glider enough to invest the time and money to learn the skill. I don’t want to transition to phase three with a hang glider.

Phase three is when you know something exists and you can do whatever is involved … but you have to think about each action while you are doing it. If you have to look at the keyboard when you type, you are in phase three. When you drive a different car, you are probably in phase three until you can minimally turn on the windshield wipers, the headlights, and adjust the radio without taking your eyes off the road.

Some people have a phenomenal ability to act in phase three. My late wife’s cousin was twelve years old when he stole an airplane from the San Carlos airport. He flew it around for an hour and then landed it ... to a welcoming committee of police officers. The boy grew up to become a commercial airline pilot ... probably flying Boeing 727s.

In phase three you have studied a foreign language enough that you can communicate readily … but you still think in English and then translate into the foreign language. The language in which you talk to yourself in your head, is your phase four language.

Phase four is mastery, when you can do something without thinking about it. This phase is what James Allen called habit force (here’s a free modernized copy of James Allen’s classic As A Man Thinketh in EZ format (arrow down until you see the title), and modern psychologists call subconscious actions. Psychologists also tell us that more than 95% of our daily activity is accomplished in phase four.

You are in phase four when you leave home in the morning, arrive at work, and have no memory of the journey. You are in phase four when a thought comes to mind and your fingers dance on the keyboard until the thought has become words on the screen.

A person is stuck in phase four whenever they complain, “But we have always done it this way!” In actuality, resistance to change is merely resistance against returning to phase three … where one has to think … in order to develop new phase four skills.

Whenever I sense myself resisting change, I know I have something new to learn because I hear my Dad’s voice telling me “When you stop learning, you start dying.”

Perhaps that’s why I like Spock’s benediction in the old Star Trek series, “Live long and prosper.” To live long and prosper requires continuous learning, developing new skills, exploring new horizons, perhaps even acquiring a new language … even if it is only a phase three language … or spending a Thursday evening at a Denny’s listening to a white haired business man.

Be happy, healthy, wealthy, and wise,
Tom Van Drielen

Home of Red Ox machines for triple conditioned water which flushes toxins out of the body, gently reduces systemic acid, while supporting the immune system with massive amounts of free radical zapping electrons.