Is there anything you would like to learn to be REALLY good at? Have you ever tried to learn something and realized that it was more difficult than you thought? Is there something you KNOW you are really good at?
NLP is the science and the art of modelling excellence, i.e. studying people who are excellent at what they are, extracting the essence of how they do it, and applying those skills to ourselves, then teaching them to others.
In NLP, we hold the belief that we can change any behaviour if it does not serve us. And we get some tools and techniques to do this. And we learn techniques that help us achieve our goals, i.e. what we want.
What you want to do first is to understand the ‘5 steps to Mastery’.
Let’s say you want to learn watercolor painting (my mum is a painter, so this is a process I went through when I was much too young to know NLP even existed).
So you think of all the beautiful watercolours you are going to create, of the exhibitions you are probably going to be asked to hold, the adoring public, the rave critics in leading Art magazines, the 6 figures price you can ask for your artwork. You have a vivid image in your head of you successful life as a reborn artist.
But first things first, a genius needs his tools. So you go to the shop, get the watercolours, the paper, the brushes all ready, sit at your desk, and start painting.
Before you started, you were unconsciously incompetent; you didn’t know you didn’t have the skills, only the desire of learning something new (and a good deal of imagination). We do not know that we don’t know, do we? That’s why it’s dangerous business to ask someone whether they understand what you mean. They always do, but not necessarily the way you want them to.
So then, you show your piece of art to … your Mum (that’s safe, she’ll probably think you’re a genius anyway) who smiles, your friends, who laugh (at you), and the rest of the world (who ignores you). You realise your painting skills need to be improved. And in a micro-second, you suddenly move up to consciously incompetent. Ouch!
Awareness is the first step to transformation really. So however painful it is to realise you’re not (yet) Picasso, it is a necessary step. By the way, this is the time when people actively seek assistance from someone who has the expertise to help them move forward.
This is a crucial make-or-break step.
From a coaching point of view, it is at this stage that it is important to TAKE ACTION, because it is then that you get discouraged (“it is much harder than I thought”). This is when you decide whether you want to work on getting your goal. It’s your CALL TO ACTION.
Of course, you can also decide that the end result is not important enough for you and hop onto something else. By the way, what decides whether you hang on or not are those really deep unconscious drives called our ‘Values’ which determines all our actions and which we study in NLP as well.
So the second step involves pro-active learning of new behaviours (i.e. learning with volition), whether you are a budding artist, or have been promoted to a managerial role and need to learn new relational skills. After a certain amount of time (which can be drastically reduced by the way using the NLP technique of ‘modelling’) you become consciously competent, i.e. you know that you can do the job, but you need to focus on what you are doing.
Take driving for example. When you sit at a wheel for the first time, you quickly become conscious of your incompetence (except if you are my friend Mark that is, who always thought he could drive despite repeated proof of the contrary). After a few lessons and regular rehearsal, you can handle your car but you need to focus on what you are doing. You are consciously competent.
Let a few months/years (life times for some) pass, and you can probably drive from A to Z while speaking on the phone (no, of course, I know you don’t), redoing your make up, changing shoes, and browsing the web on your iPad. That is unconscious competence (or in this particular example, sheer madness). It means you can do it without thinking about it, like brushing your teeth in the morning. The skill is not a conscious process anymore, it’s been internalised and assimilated in your nervous system. It became part of you.
As any sportsman or artist will know, rehearsal is a big part of becoming unconsciously competent. Some studies even showed that you’d need to rehearse over 10,000 times to become really proficient.
As you become unconsciously competent, the pattern of behaviour is stored in the centre of the brain that stores reflexes. It becomes available whenever it’s needed. The space in areas of our brain that deal with conscious behaviour is freed up (you do not need to think about it), allowing you to add another layer of even more refined skills over the one you’ve internalised, the process behind building Mastery.
Unconscious Incompetence => Conscious Incompetence => Conscious Competence => Unconscious Competence => Mastery
NLP proposes several techniques to help you learn faster and more efficiently. Check out the Schedule of All Courses now to read discover what the courses can do for you and check the dates of the next NLP certification.