Where Do I Start?

Hey guys, another Sunday. I have really been thinking of running a little training which led to certain conversations. Where do I start is a question many people ask, it shows enthusiasm some might say passion in some cases but from experience where do I start in 90% of the time is not.

Learning something new can be very tasking, it requires time and energy. There is a model called The Four  Stages of Competence in psychology, it relates to the psychological states involved in the process of progressing from incompetence to competence in a skill. Personally I have gone through the levels while acquiring various skills and progressing requires way more than questions. James J Corbett says,

Only those who have patience to do simple things perfectly ever acquire the skill to do difficult things easily.

The stages of competency include; Unconscious incompetence, Conscious incompetence, Conscious competence and Unconscious competence.

• Unconscious incompetence: The Individual does not know the skill and they don’t recognize the usefulness.
• Conscious incompetence: The individual does not know the skill but they recognize the usefulness.
• Conscious competence: The individual knows but requires a lot of focus to use the skill and probably a lot of referencing.
• Unconscious competence: At this point the skill is a part of you and you don’t need so much focus.

Going through this stages bring about many questions, at the Unconscious competence level you may ask, What is this? Conscious incompetence, Where do I start?  And so on… There is a certain question no one asks and it is, “How do I continue?” I’ve been a victim of this a couple of times and it has taught me how much energy needs to be put into building a solid foundation.

Just like my man James said, Patience is the key and the foundation is the most important. After you start learning something new you will require the most touted term “Consistency”. This doesn’t mean practice 4 hours every day or every two days. To me consistency starts with as little as thinking about it every day to doing it for 15 minutes every day.

I have had the opportunity of coaching people on different things including Programming, thesis writing and project management. I realized that the question “Where do I start?” is really not as helpful as it sounds. People are ready to ask how long it takes, when they will start seeing results and fail to ask, Is it possible to combine this with other tasks? How do I do that? Where do I go from here?

In the lyrics of a music I listened to it said, “We all want answers but we are asking the wrong questions”. So I am asking you to please ask the right questions in other to set the right controls for your progress.

The class will be coming soon it will be a very foundational course and less schooly (for the lack of a better term). I hope you guys have a wonderful week.

Thanks! Happy Birthday Mommy. We gotta run… 🙂

Or drive…