Lot of us are aware of four stage Maslow learning model, where a person moves from "unconscious incompetence" to "unconscious competence" Conscious competence model. Lately I was trying to align my life learning's on this model, and there is quite a bit of it, like learning subjects, riding cycle, bike, driving car, eating with fork or chopstick and list can go on. One common attribute in all such learning's was that there was a "need and will" to learn, so in all cases first I decided what I want to learn, then I made conscious effort to learn and thereafter it became second nature.

There are however things, which I did not consciously learn but they have become my second nature. For eg. I never wanted to consciously learn to ..... Shout during arguments, Procrastinate my tasks, Become selfish and think most of the time about "what is in it for me", Trusting people, Be calm, Desire to win and so on...

On further questioning, I am starting to realize that how I perform, is more dependent on things I learned unconsciously than the things I learned consciously. Looking at how did I learn these behaviors, they do not seem to follow the model of conscious learning, as I do not recall being aware of learning them, nor making extra efforts.

Unconscious learning seem to be

• Significant to life
• Having larger impact on my day to day activities
• Long Lasting and difficult to let go
• Complex in nature

That brings me to a question -

"if I did not learn all of these by using conscious learning model, then is there a model of subconscious learning?" I am questioning the very fundamental assumption that in order to learn something one must become conscious.

Is there a model where person can move from “unconscious incompetence” to “unconscious competence” without bringing consciousness/awareness in picture, where efforts are also made unconsciously?

Looking forward for your thoughts.

P.S: Subconscious and unconscious words are used interchangeably.