I want to share an important lesson with you that I was discussing with a long-time client.

Been working together for 5+ years…that’s almost as long as we have been in business.

He brings in about $200K/month in income...so in this industry…that’s pretty good.

Anyways, we were discussing new projects and new initiatives and the comment he made was “I don’t know if it will be successful.”

Everyone faces this dilemma when trying something new or different or learning something new.

Here are 2 frameworks that work together to help you navigate this because without these tools…it’s far to easy to be your own echo chamber and never get anywhere.

Framework #1. Understand that to get from where you are to where you want to be requires new skills.

The path to learning these new skills and succeeding involves a process some call the hierarchy of competence.

Here is what it is and how it works. (See slide #1)

In stage one…(Unconscious incompetence) you don’t know what you don’t know.

Stage two…(Conscious incompetence) you know what you don’t know.

Stage three. (Conscious competence) You know what you know.

Stage four. (Unconscious Competence) Mastery…

Most people do not ascend the pyramid…here is why:

Framework #2. Why do people get trapped in an endless loop of chasing shiny objects…this applies to some of you here. (See slide #2 and #3)

As you start to learn a skill….you have optimism that it will work for you because you have seen it work for others. But you don’t know what you don’t know so while your excitement is high, you don’t really have the skills yet…so as you start to execute, the skills you believed you had just developed, you experience failure because with any new skill, there are also meta-skills you need to learn.

This often leads to an emotional crash of feeling let down or it’s too hard or something doesn’t work, or any number of other self-defeating mechanisms.

And this shows up in people’s language patterns too like:

“if this works….”

When people try and fail, try and fail, often they look for external reasons vs. internal fixes…the problem is that the learner is unconsciously incompetent they don’t know what is broken or what to focus on.

This can lead to a crisis of meaning, wrong conclusions (people are really good at lying to themselves) and either crashing and burning and then looking for the next shiny object... (See slide #3)

OR

Working through the most difficult stage which is unconscious incompetence and into Conscious incompetence. This is where you know what you need to work on and can start to see improvement as you keep practicing and making changes.

This stage requires commitment because emotionally you might be feeling low.

Success happens when you know what to fix, how to fix it, and are committed to fixing it…

Simple but not always easy....This is the way.