The four Levels of Learning

What does it take to learn a skill? 

That depends on what you mean by learning. There is a difference between familiarity with how to do a task and being proficient at it. Whether you’re talking about hand-to-hand self-defense skills or simply learning to tie your shoes, levels of learning can be broken down into specific categories to help understand to process. While I don’t know the original source of these categories, they were taught to me over 10 years ago in the police academy and have been with me ever since. I hope they are a help to you as well. 

There are actually 4 levels of learning. There will be many skills that will remain in categories 1 and 2 for your entire life. There will be many that will be in category 3. Hopefully, you will also attain category 4 in some vital areas as well, but this comes with much time and effort. Let me explain. 

The 4 levels of learning are as follows:

Unconscious incompetence

Conscious incompetence

Conscious competence

Unconscious competence

Level 1: Unconscious Incompetence

Let’s define our terms. “Unconscious” in this context means unaware, and “incompetent” means that you lack skill or ability. So literally, level one means that you are unskilled or untrained in a certain area, but you’re not aware that you are lacking in that area. This could be an area that you’ve never been exposed to, or it could be something that you know exists, but you have no grasp on how unskilled you really are at it. An example of this would be a child seeing an older sibling riding a bike. That child may have a genuine belief that they can hop on the bike and ride, but they have no concept of how difficult it is, and how much practice it will actually take. 

Level 2: Conscious Incompetence

This is the level is where you become aware of your lack of skill. At the level of conscious incompetence, you are starting to learn to ins and outs of a particular skill set. You know what steps you need to take to succeed at a task, but you’re unable to effectively carry them out. Conscious incompetence is the most frustrating level, because you’re fully aware of your lack of ability and the progress seems slow. This would be like the child that is beginning to practice riding a bike. They fall over and over again. Perseverance however, will allow them to attain the next level.

Level 3: Conscious Competence

As you can probably guess at this point, conscious competence means that you are able to complete the task to a satisfactory level. However, it takes conscious effort for each step. As long as you are able to recite the steps either verbally or in your head, you can accomplish your goal. This is the child the is finally able to ride the bicycle without dad holding onto them. They may be unsure of themselves, but if they remember the steps (push off with the grounded foot, pedal hard with the opposite foot, stay upright to keep balanced…), they can ride without crashing. 

Level 4: Unconscious Competence

The epitome of learning a skill is found in unconscious competence. At this level, you’ve practiced, trained, and refined your skill to the point that you can complete it with no conscious thought whatsoever. This is the level where the child can ride the bike while looking around and carrying on a conversation without needing to pay attention to the actual riding process. There are many daily actions that you take that fall into this level. Simple tasks such as walking, brushing your teeth, or tying your shoes are all things that you’ve (hopefully) attained unconscious competence in. 

So how does this apply to us? We can see consistently when looking at people in high stress, dangerous situations that rational thinking disappears, or at least is dramatically inhibited, when stress levels are through the roof. If you’re depending on using a skill such as drawing a firearm and firing accurately, using hands-on skills to block a punch or escape a grab, or even responding appropriately to an approaching traffic collision, the only way we can depend on these skills in the moment of need is to train them to the level of unconscious competence. It is only at this level that you can reliably execute the needed skills without needing to fight through the brain fog to remember the proper steps. 

How do we practically attain this level of competence? The answer is simple, but not easy. We have to train. Train, train, and train some more. Train in static, safe environments, then start to introduce stress and variables into the situation for you to overcome. When you think you have a skill to a satisfactory level, keep training it anyway. Train to maintain your skill, then work on the next one. Training is an ongoing process, not a one time event. 

I hope that this insight into the levels of learning helps you better understand the process of learning vital skills. If you have questions or feedback, reach out to us at isaac@htlwarrior.com. 

Until next time, 

Be a warrior…

Stand in the breach…

Hold the line…

- Isaac C.