There are four stages to changing a habit…
Three of them are uncomfortable
Three of them take great effort
One feels amazing, and still takes effort but is so much easier…
Here they are…
- Unconsciously Incompetent
- Consciously Incompetent
- Consciously Competent
- Unconsciously Competent
Unconsciously Incompetent
This is the stage where you have no idea how you got here, or why you are doing it…
And you don’t know what to do about it.
Like me — always yelling at my kids and not being able to change it, or where to start.
This feels stuck! And aweful!
You are “unaware” of what is causing you to be “incompetent” in your life.
You are doing the same things you’ve always done and getting the same result, but wishing it was a different result.
This is a hard place to live…
Wanting things to change, but not knowing why they are this way, and not knowing what to do to make it better.
Consciously Incompetent
This is the stage where you have decided “what you are doing, isn’t giving you the result you want;
AND you know how bad you are at it. (ick)
However, you don’t know how to change or fix it.
You don’t know what to think, how to feel, how to behave.
This also feels stuck, but now you are aware of it… and it feels that much worse.
This is also the stage where you compare yourself unkindly to others a lot.
You beat yourself up for your incompetence
You feel guilty and terrible.
Maybe being blissfully unaware of all of this is better and you want to go back to being unconscious about your incompetent behaviors – lol!
Sure, you can try it, but you’ll just keep going back and forth between being UNaware and feeling bad, and being Aware and feeling bad …
Neither one sounds nice, does it?
Conscious Competence
This stage feels so much better, but it takes work.
You’re seeing progress and feeling better…
But it is still taking A LOT of work!
You still have to choose your new thoughts, feelings, and habits and really work at it.
However, you know it’s worth it so you keep practicing…
When you mess up, you pick yourself up quicker and move forward.
Unconscious Incompetence
This stage is amazing!
This is the reward of all your previous efforts…
This is where you’re thinking, feeling, and doing patterns have become part of your everyday life.
It takes very little effort to keep them or sustain them.
You don’t have to consciously choose them anymore, they just come to your mind naturally!
This is where you are finally feeling naturally confident, hopeful, and managing the ups and downs of life with relative ease…
And a lot less drama.
This stage is the ultimate goal!
Knowing what these stages are makes it easier to understand where you are and why you are feeling the way you are. In the next blog post I’m going to explain what this process looks like in real life.