Wow… A Blog!

View from an airplane window at the wings and flying over a scenic landscape of green hills and rivers

So, my web designer, Sue (love her!), sent me an e-mail weeks ago outlining how I can access my new blog and begin to post my own entries. I immediately panicked. What do I know about blogging? What will it take to maintain a blog? She’s the web page expert. I closed her e-mail invitation to “blog away!” and moved on to other projects that were in my comfort zone.

[deep breath]

This blogging thing stirred me until a bit later I was reminded of my first coaching class when we were introduced to a model that outlines the process learners take from incompetence to competence. Blogging… incompetence… this felt right.

The model goes something like this:

Unconscious Incompetence: I don’t know what I don’t know. We’re incompetent but we don’t care… we don’t even know we’re incompetent because the activity means nothing to us. For me, I think rodeo bull rider.

Conscious Incompetence: Now I know what I don’t know. This stage can be a bit frightening or even overwhelming. We are aware of what we don’t know. We want to quit once we begin. For me, I think blogging.

Conscious Competence: I know what I know. This is the level of learning where we actually begin to achieve a level of mastery, at least over some of the aspects of the challenge. We may not be experts but we have expertise. Oh, this example is easy; parenting a teenager.

Unconscious Competence: I’m not aware and I know. This is the stage of mastery. This is the stage of flow. For me, driving and fundraising certainly apply here.

Today I am blogging somewhere in between Conscious Incompetence and Conscious Competence (leaning more toward Conscious Incompetence). I am no longer panicked and out of breath. In fact, I am kind of excited about blogging. And I lack the technical skills to make this easy and I will probably want to give up at times. Today I am doing what I quickly avoided weeks ago. It’s a dance between stages.

What do you know about your learning? Where are you unconscious and conscious? Where are you incompetent and competent? What does the path from Unconscious Incompetence to Conscious Competence look like for you?

Welcome to the Gro(w)th Coaches Blog! Keep checking back.

[Thanks, always, to the Coaches Training Institute for informing and inspiring my work by providing meaningful models like the Learning Steps.]