Stage one:

Unconsciously unconscious

In other words: You don't know what you don't know

There's information out there that you couldn't even describe if you wanted to. You can't name, describe how it confuses you or what you know of it. In fact, you know nothing of this information. To you, it's like it doesn't exist.

Stage two:

Consciously unconscious

In other words: You now know what you don't know

You've discovered that something exists, theres new information out there, but you don't know anything about it. Nothing at all. But you know it exists.

Stage three:

Consciously conscious

in other words: You now know that you know this new information

This is also where you are learning it. Arguably the hardest part of the learning process and would be what most people think is the entire learning process. You have to actually pay attention to the fact that you know something. It requires effort to recall. This is the work.

Stage four:

Unconsciously conscious

in other words: You now don't know that you know

This is the world of automaticity. You don't have to think about knowing this information, in fact you don't think about it at all. It just pops up in your mind as you recall it from the library of your mind.

The reason I point this out is this - Most people don't realize that the first two steps are actually a part of the learning process. The second step often feels the most hopeless, because we can spend our time just going from thing to thing to thing, only while doing steps one and two.

If we spend all of our time on steps 1 and 2 then it feels like we're just learning all of the things we don't know.

Trust the process.

Becoming more conscious is part of waking up.

Keep working.

One step at a time.

Chris