NLP Learning Help

Learning is usually defined as acquiring knowledge, skills and abilities by study, experience or through being taught. The NLP presupposition "Everyone has all the resources they need already or can acquire them" is an empowering and helpful belief.

Learning is natural. We learn all the time; it is part of adapting to changing circumstances. However, we do not always think of this as learning and do not usually pay conscious attention and awareness unless you are mucking for an upcoming school exam!

Learning is not the same as education; it is not the same as teaching either. Learning always involves self-development - learning to act differently, think differently and feel differently. 

You Cannot Have A Teacher Without A Learner

Teaching cannot exist as an activity by itself. It makes no sense to say "I taught the subject but the students did not learn it". This is similar to the joke "The operation was a success but the patient died!" The teacher is also a learner, although they will learn something different from the person they are teaching. Learning can also be a solo event that does not require a physical teacher to "teach" you. 

Stages Of Traditional Learning

Traditional learning can be divided into several main stages:

• Unconscious incompetence
• Conscious incompetence
• Conscious competence
• Unconscious competence
• Mastery

Mastery, Operating In The "Flow State"

Mastery is more than unconscious competence, it has an extra aesthetic dimension. It is not only effective, but also beautiful to watch. When you have reached mastery, you no longer have to try, everything comes together in a constant flow, and you operate in a "flow state".

Experts estimated that it takes about 1.000 hours to reach conscious competence at any worthwhile skill, about 5,000 hours to reach unconscious competence, and about 25,000 hours to reach mastery state.

There are two short cuts to learning:

• Good teaching
• Accelerated learning

A Good Teacher/Mentor/Coach

A good teacher will keep your level of motivation high, divide the work into manageable chunks, give you a constant series of small successes, keep you in a good emotional state and satisfy your intellectual curiosity about the subject. They will also be good at the subject themselves and accelerate your learning by being a good role model. 

They will not only give you the knowledge, but also a good strategy for learning it. A good way to do this is to find a mentor that has the skills or values that you wish to learn, and to seek knowledge and connect with this mentor. 

NLP Modeling, Accelerated Learning

Accelerated learning goes directly from stage one (unconscious incompetence) to stage four (unconscious competence), bypassing the conscious stages. NLP modelling is one way to accelerated learning. We will cover NLP accelerated learning in a future article on "NLP Modelling of Successful People".