Have you ever met someone who’s done course after course… yet nothing much seems to change?
They can explain the concepts, and they understand the theory. They’ve read the books. They received the certificate from some random course they did.
Once they have ticked it off, nothing seems to change in their life.
Why?
Change comes through application and the deep integration of knowledge.
The four stages of learning
In NLP, we describe learning as four stages.
- Unconscious Incompetence: we begin not knowing what we don’t know.
- Conscious Incompetence: we become aware of the gap.
- Conscious Competence: with practice, we can use the skill, and it still requires intention.
- Unconscious Competence: the skill becomes part of who you are, and you operate from it automatically.
Why we insist on practice
That’s one of the reasons we’re so insistent on practice throughout our trainings. We teach a concept, demonstrate it, coach you through it and have you practise it again and again while you’re in the room. That’s where understanding starts to become capability.
And it doesn’t stop when the training finishes.
It’s why we encourage our graduates to keep showing up to our monthly Coaching Mastery calls and Coaches Gym sessions. Mastery comes through repetition, feedback and real-world application.
The people who experience the greatest transformation are the ones who keep practising until what they’ve learned becomes second nature, changing their own lives and the lives of the people they coach, lead and love.
One question to ask yourself today:
What is something I have learnt in theory but have yet to put into practice?
Learn how to fast-track unconscious competence at our 8-Day NLP Practitioner Training. Find out more here.
