The Competency Continuum*

Note: This blog is a good complement to my April 2018 Blog on Growth Mindset and Fixed Mindset.

The Competency Continuum is a four-part model outlining the stages of learning. It has been applied to many different disciplines including psychology, sociology, business, economics and athletics. I use it to help clients understand the process of learning and implementing  new coping skills into their lives. Using new coping skills can reduce anxiety or depression, control anger, improve interpersonal relationships and manage symptoms. It’s important to remember developing competency  takes both practice and patience and can involve failures and setbacks. There’s a tendency  to try  putting new skills to work immediately. This can be a recipe for failure. We become more competent if we practice when we are relaxed and calm; that way we become familiar with how to use the skills and how it feels in our body when use them.  Then we will be more successful when we need to use them. This makes it likely that we will reach our goals. The stages of the Competency Continuum are as follows:

Stage 1 – Unconscious Competency – This is what one could call the pre-learning phase. We know something about the task we are undertaking, but may not understand all that goes into making it happen. The temptation can be to think we’ll sail through the process and be a pro in a few weeks. Once we begin the task we start to realize how much there  is still to learn. Think of your first time driving a car after driver’s ed. If you are like me, you realized there was a whole lot you didn’t know about being on the road. This takes us to the next stage.

Stage 2 – Conscious Incompetency –Here we identify what we need to become competent at our endeavor. It’s the initial stage of learning. We might feel discouraged because goals feel far away and unattainable or  feel awkward and overwhelmed as we try new things. We’ll make mistakes and weather setbacks;aybe it feels like there has been little or no progress. This is when we need to call upon our growth mindset to help use some positive self-talk and/or get encouragement from a mentor or therapist who will point out the progress we’ve made. If we persevere we will feel more successful and confident.

Stage 3 – Conscious Competency — In this stage there are more successes than failures which gives us a sense of forward momentum. We assess what works, what doesn’t and fine-tune our plan accordingly. We have more confidence, and if we get discouraged it’s easier to get back on track. We start to use skills more often, and if they don’t work it’s easier to look at what went wrong with a critical eye, change our plan if needed. When we know we will be facing a challenge, we make a plan for using skills. We are starting to integrate what we have learned, and sometimes use skills without thinking about it.

Stage 4 – Unconscious Competency –When faced with a challenge we are successful with our skills without thinking about it. We have reached our goal of competency.  Whether or not we achieve the desired outcome, we feel competent and confident. When we don’t get what we want, we ask ourselves if we could have done something differently. Sometimes the answer is no because it’s possible to  use our skills well and still not get the outcome we want.

Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) uses Diary Cards to track progress. I sometimes refer to them when helping clients  evaluate their progress. Read through the 8 possible outcomes below, and you will see a good illustration of the Competency Continuum in action.

Peace