4 Stages of Learning Any Skill | Key to Self-Actualization

The model for four stages of learning, or four stages of competence, is both simple and elegant.

It’s one of those models that, when you see it, it’s abundantly obvious right away.

Yet, before you know the four stages of learning, these stages can haunt you.

Let’s jump right in …

CONTENTS

What are the Four Stages of Learning?

In brief, the four stages of competence are:

Stage 1: Unconscious Incompetence (Ignorance)
Stage 2: Conscious Incompetence (Awareness)
Stage 3: Conscious Competence (Learning)
Stage 4: Unconscious Competence (Mastery)

These four stages of learning were used in management training in the 60s and 70s. The original model was created by Martin Broadwell in 1969. Many attribute this model to psychologist Abraham Maslow, but this is incorrect.

The four stages of learning have become a common model used in the coaching industry. This model is also called the four stages of competence and the four levels of teaching.

A fifth stage of learning was later added to the model, which is discussed below.

Why the Four Stages of Learning is Important

The four stages of learning are highly relevant for anyone interested in skill building, self-mastery, personal development, or self-actualization.

Why?

For the most part, we aren’t consciously taught how we learn. As a consequence, when we approach learning in adulthood, we often hit a mental wall early on that leads us to stall or stop our progress.

Maslow referred to this common occurrence as “aborted self-actualization.”

However, when we understand the nature of the learning process through these four stages, we can regulate our expectations. So, when challenges arise in learning new skills, we are more equipped to navigate through them.

The Four Stages of Learning and a Growth Mindset

The four stages of competence relate to psychologist Carol Dweck’s popular research on mindsets.¹

Dweck found that individuals have either a growth mindset or a fixed mindset.

Someone with a growth mindset intuitively understands these four stages of learning.

However, those with the all-too-common fixed mindset, don’t.

Those with a fixed mindset expect learning to be smooth and easy. They tend to abandon learning by Stage 2. Eventually, they stop trying entirely out of fear of looking stupid (incompetent).

The four stages of learning highlight the experiential process of growth—especially in relationship to developing skills in any area of life.

As such, these four stages of competence can be highly beneficial to anyone looking to adopt a growth mindset.

The Four Stages of Learning – Detailed Descriptions

Now, let’s take a closer look at each of the four stages of learning.

When you know what’s ahead of you, you can avoid getting hijacked by discouragement. Instead, you muster the will to move forward and follow through.

Stage 1: Unconscious Incompetence (Ignorance)

Stage 1 is defined by ignorance.

The first stage of unconscious incompetence is where we don’t know what we don’t know.

You don’t know how awkward it feels playing the guitar until you pick one up and try to strum a chord.

The drive to remain unconscious of our incompetence can be strong. The saying, “Ignorance is bliss” certainly applies here.

Before we embark on any process of growth, we simply can’t appreciate how little we know at the onset.

In fact, we often don’t even realize something is a genuine skill. We might have an intuition of how to perform said skill, but before we try, that intuition is usually wrong.

Stage 2: Conscious Incompetence (Awareness)

Stage 2 is defined by awareness.

The next stage of learning is conscious incompetence. Our minds are now aware that we are at the beginning of a long learning curve.

You start learning the basics of guitar and realize you can’t even hold the instrument correctly. No matter how hard you try, your fingers can’t press down hard enough on the frets.

Your hands feel awkward and after a short time of “trying to play” you feel like your fingertips are bleeding.

This stage often brings up feelings of weakness and inadequacy, feelings that our egos try to avoid.

Similar to Stage 1, we still don’t fully know what we don’t know. But we are becoming aware of our ignorance.

While you may have experienced a burst of excitement and enthusiasm when you began stage 1, that initial energy often dissipates in stage 2.

This is where many of us bail out of the developmental process. This stage of learning requires commitment and discipline to endure the discomfort.

Stage 3: Conscious Competence (Learning)

Stage 3 is defined by learning.

With consistent practice, devotion, awareness, and patience, you navigate through the plateaus and extended periods of hard work involved in the learning process.

To reach conscious competence, you must first welcome or at least work through the uncomfortable feelings that accompany conscious incompetence.

However, by Stage 3, you have at least observed periods of progress. Your confidence in your abilities is growing. You experiencing increasing levels of competence in your abilities.

Remembering where you once were, you can now marvel at your improvements. Now, you have hard-earned callouses on your fingertips and you can comfortably strum many chords on your guitar without that awkwardness you once experienced.

The more you practice, the smoother and more natural your performance of the skill becomes.

At this stage, you still need to focus intently on the object of learning with great concentration, but your progress is undeniable. You are now becoming proficient in your chosen skill.

Stage 4: Unconscious Competence (Mastery)

Stage 4 is defined by mastery. The real magic occurs at this final stage of alchemical transformation.

From total darkness, awkwardness, discomfort, and frustration experienced in stages 1 and 2, through the herculean efforts of consistent practice in stage 3, emerges a new level of being.

With unconscious competence, intense concentration on the task at hand is no longer needed to perform a skill effortlessly.

That intense concentration you exerted in the prior stage of learning can now become a hindrance. Here, we learn to “let go” and trust our bodies.

The prior stage of learning requires a lot of energy and mental focus. In stage 3, you were slowly building and strengthening loads of new neuronal connections in your brain and nervous system.

To achieve mastery, however, you must come to trust your prior training and practice so the skill can become automatic.

This automatic response allows us to enter an absorbed, thoughtless state, often called being “in the zone” or “in the flow.”

We witness this stage of mastery in every area of life including great athletes, musicians, orators, and anyone who walks the path of self-mastery.

How to Go From Conscious Competence to Unconscious Competence

But this isn’t the whole story. There’s an unexpressed assumption in this model for four stages of learning.

The assumption is that to go from conscious competence to unconscious competence, you have to put forth a lot of effort and “train harder.”

This assumption can appear valid because top performers tend to train and practice more than their competitors. (Former all-stars like Michael Jordan in basketball and Tiger Woods in golf were prime examples.)

However, unconscious competence comes not through “more effort” but through a kind of relinquishing or “surrendering” within oneself.

You don’t stop playing the guitar, but you do stop trying to play chords perfectly. You don’t stop shooting free throws, but you no longer aim the basketball at the hoop.

It’s often when you reach the point where you think you’re never going to reach any level of mastery, that the transformation unfolds. It’s not by will, but by allowing or letting go that mastery is realized.

A Fifth Stage of Learning: Conscious Unconscious Competence

Educational psychologists have more recently added a fifth stage of learning to Broadwell’s original model called “Conscious Unconscious Competence.”

In the fourth stage, individuals can perform at a mastery level because the skill is embedded within them.

In this fifth stage, however, individuals can now explain how they can perform at mastery with ease to others.

Here, individuals can reflect on how they perform so well and unpack strategies to teach others.

One can argue that this ability to highlight effective techniques represents a different skill set.

For example, many of the best sports coaches were only adequate athletes themselves while most of the best sports stars would make ineffective coaches.

That is, masterful coaches are not necessarily the most technically proficient.

Regardless, at this fifth stage, the student becomes the teacher and can share this knowledge with others.

The Four Stages of Learning Applies to All Skills

These four stages of learning can be applied to virtually any area of life. For example:

Driving
Teaching
Sports
Music
Martial arts
Meditation
Marksmanship
Cooking
Communication
Writing
Drawing
Painting
Qigong
Yoga

For those willing to embrace these four stages of learning, the transformative state of unconscious competence is available to all.

Realizing Peak Experiences in Stage 4

Maslow invested a lot of time studying peak experiences—a euphoric state of harmony and oceanic oneness.²

He described peak experiences as a selfless state of total absorption often followed by feelings of love, joy, and wholeness.

Here’s the best part: While everyone has access to these peak experiences at various times in their lives, Maslow found that self-actualizing individuals had significantly more of them.

That is, those who invest the time, energy, and effort to realize unconscious competence in various areas of life tend to have more of these natural, peak experiences.

It seems our biology favors the prepared souls who walk the path to self-mastery.

What good news!

Books Related to the Stages of Learning

Here are a selection of books related to stages of learning and self-development:

Mastery
by George Leonard

The Talent Code
by Daniel Coyle

The Little Book of Talent
by Daniel Coyle

Mindset: The New Psychology of Success
by Carol Dweck

The Four Stages of Learning Any Skill on Your Path to Self-Actualization