Episode 5: The Four Stages of Competency

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Podcasting from a little cabin on a hill. This is the Westfall podcast. Stacy's goal is simple to teach you to understand why horses do what they do, as well as the action steps for creating clear, confident communication with your horses.

Hello, I'm Stacey Westfall, and I teach people how to understand, enjoy and successfully train their own horses in this first season of the podcast.

I'm discussing issues that frequently affect the riders mind or way of thinking in today's episode. I'm discussing the four stages of competency and how it shows up when you're riding your horse. So I came across an article on dressage today when I was scrolling through their feed on Facebook and it was talking about competency. And after reading the article, I did a Google search and found out that this was a thing that I'd never heard of before. And basically this model for stages of incompetency structures, this idea like this. They say there's four different stages that you move through when you're learning something and the first stage is unconsciously incompetent. The short version of that is you don't know what you don't know. The second stage is conscious incompetency. This is the stage where you become aware that you don't know. The third stage is conscious competency, which is when if you focus and try hard to remember, you are competent and able to perform whatever it is you're doing. And then the fourth stage, the final stage is unconscious competency, which is when you no longer have to do so much work of really trying to be there because it's happening more as an unconscious thing. And to get you quickly into an area that you have probably quite a bit of familiarity with is we can use this really quickly on driving a car. So I helped teach all three of my sons how to drive.

And you can clearly see all of these stages when somebody is learning to drive. So unconsciously incompetent, they begin driving. They don't know what they don't know. And then conscious incompetence, they become aware that they are missing some things, conscious competence when they're really focused and trying hard. They can drive really well and not scare the passenger. And then in the final stage, there are quite a few of you who are adults that are listening that probably occasionally show up at a location like the grocery store or work or friend's house. And you kind of can't remember driving there. That's because you did it with more unconscious competence. And so let's go ahead and apply that to writing. So a lot of times when people get started, they start that beginning that unconsciously incompetent. And so this is that that dreaming stage, it's a very fun time. Usually the best thing about being around people who are in the stage is that they have so much excitement. So even though they might not have a lot of knowledge, they have a lot of excitement. And it's actually as a teacher nowadays when I'm training people, it's kind of a fun stage to be near because there's energy and creativity there. And unfortunately, what I have observed in specific to horseback riding is that a lot of times the difference between being unconsciously incompetent and consciously incompetent is usually a turning point that involves some kind of minor or major injury.

And so it's not quite as fun. And you can distinctly feel, just as I say, that why there would be this shift from the dreaming stage into this this other stage that I've previously called, like the learning stage. And the reason is that in this conscious incompetency stage. So maybe somebody has fallen off a horse for the first time and that was the first time they realized, whoa, something could happen or it could just be, you know, a lot more minor. It could be that they've been, you know, stepped on or kind of pushed or unable to catch the horse. You know, something just unable to catch. There is some little thing that typically happens that brings up this awareness that you don't know enough. And again, I've seen a lot of times where there's some sort of injury that's involved in there. And the good thing about this stage is that you're now aware that you need some help. So if you reach out at this stage and ask for help, it can be a great place. So if you keep studying and you've you've entered conscious incompetency, you can actually keep working. Maybe that's taking riding lessons, maybe that's reading. And you can start to become more and more aware to where you can be more consciously competent. So that might mean let's keep this in one example. Maybe that means that you'd been dreaming of getting a horse. You got the horse.

You've been around the horse for however long and you've noticed the horses pushing on, you getting more and more pushy and you've been stepped on somewhere in that range. You started to look out for more help. And so somewhere during that stage of conscious incompetency, you looked for help and you found somebody and you worked towards becoming consciously competent. So now as long as you're focused, which means maybe you're not talking on the phone while you're leading your horse, maybe your, you know, very clear, as long as you're focused, you're able to now lead your horse and keep your horse out of your space. So that's kind of how that conscious competency, you know, how to do this as long as you're thinking about it. And then what we would love to get to and I think what people often see with when they watch professionals like myself leading a horse is it seems like, yes, I can lead multiple horses all at the same time and be talking on the phone because the amount of work and time that I've put into it has raised my knowledge and my competency level up into that unconsciously competent. So it looks kind of magic. Well, the people that are watching, but it just comes from lots and lots of good practice, which is hopefully what you were getting when you were driving your car, that then led to the point where you could drive safely. And yet this slight feeling of autopilot.

So when I'm leading a group of horses and I'm multitasking by talking on the phone, I've got enough experience that I'm able to do all of these different things and still be able to rely on that unconscious competency. And I have to say, it's really, really cool when you reach that stage because there's a lot of great things there. I think it's important for people to recognize that these stages exist and that if I could draw on a piece of paper for you, I would draw a bell curve. This classic bell curve where at the beginning, when people get started, it's usually a fairly short time that they're in this unconsciously incompetence stage. And then the middle of that bell curve is kind of halfway divided between conscious incompetence and conscious competence. And that is where a lot of people who report feeling stuck when they're working with their horse or their riding. Maybe they're they're trying to advance themselves and they feel stuck. Almost always that is a signal that they are actually probably right where they need to be somewhere in this middle and they're working between this conscious competency and conscious incompetency. And then if you continue onward, there is the opportunity. But but it is a smaller just like on the bell curve leading in was smaller on the way in and leading on the way out is smaller. If you put in all the time in the study, you can get to this unconscious competence stage.

And let me just put more framework around this so you can hear better. So let's say that you've been working and training and you've been riding with somebody for a couple of years. And let's just put it into an example like a lead change. A lead change is a great example of a place where a lot of times people are initially consciously incompetent. They're like, I do not know how to make this happen. And they get instruction on how to move the horse's shoulder, how to keep the forward motion, how to move the horses hip, the timing that's required. And as that has broken down for them, they become more and more aware. And as they become more aware in their mind, they're able to better execute with their body. And so they've got this conscious competence that's happening, but they have to really focus on it. You can't eventually get to the point where it is something that's unconsciously competent, but it's also very real that for a lot of people, there's a long time where there's this high degree of awareness that's needed. And one of the reasons for that is because you may be consciously competent about the need for forward motion during the lead change, because, you know, you don't want your horse to build a slowdown or brake gate or any of the other problems that come from not having an a forward motion during the lead change.

But that's one tiny little piece. So you might be consciously competent with that, but you might not be aware of whether that forward motion is simply the horse moving forward or whether they're getting an upward. We're gonna call it a little bit of a jump. Like if you can imagine cantering on the horse and the horse canters over a log, there's a little bit of an upward motion or a jump. So you might be consciously incompetent about what true forward motion with that upward piece of that forward motion is. So do you see how this gets pretty complicated when we start to move up to higher level things? And on top of that, the lead change involves much more and involves where the rider's moving the horse's shoulder, where the rider's moving, the horses hip, whether that forward motion is there and so many other layers that it's possible for you to be competent in one area and incompetent in another. All inside of one simple maneuver, like a flying lead change. And it's an important thing that you ride with somebody who keeps encouraging you. And it is not false encouragement. If I'm telling you good, that's better. And you report back to me, but it doesn't feel better. And I say, OK, you did a better job of keeping the horse forward, not letting them slow down and not letting them go forward as like running like flat down a race track.

Because that doesn't involve that upward jump that we need to get the elevation for the lead change. So in that moment, the improvement I saw in you was in the fact that you kept the horse forward and moving with that upward motion that was needed. I will grant you that your timing was. When you ask for the horse to move the shoulder and then the hip, it's important because it is very, very real that much of your riding career and handling horses career will be in these areas. And I know this because personally for myself, I have experienced it even as recently as the last few years, which I think would probably surprise some of you. Let's stop and take a look at that. If I stop and think about my body and my training, I've done a lot of things that have led towards being able to do raining and a lot of Western disciplines. So a few years ago when I started taking dressage lessons, I was being asked to ride in a slightly different way than I would have. I ride a lot of my horses two-handed for a lot longer than people would think. And because even though when you show raining, you show one handed most of the time, even though that's true, the training to keep the horse balanced is actually done a lot. two-handed and then transitioned over to one handed cues. But having said all that, if you think about it, I ride right-handed.

So in a way we could actually stop and we could think about my body and my mind as almost being two separate things. My muscle memory is unconsciously competent for a certain set of things that I've trained my body to do. It's kind of on autopilot. So that's why when I go to think about doing a lead change, I don't have to think about what I'm doing with my body anymore because it's doing it on autopilot, like driving a car. But during the dressage lesson, I would be taking the dressage lesson and they would want me. You know, I'm I'm sitting up there nice and straight. I'm holding my hands in front of me and they're asking me to move my horse in and let's just say like a half pass or something like that. So I'm moving the horse across the arena in some kind of a way. And when I would feel a certain resistance in my horse and I would want to help the horse, the way that my body wanted to move was counter intuitive to it. It was against the instruction that the instructor would be giving me because my right hand has been trained to do more than even my left hand. So my left hand rides horses when I ride two handed and when I ride one handed and do advance moves, my left hand does nothing because I'm riding one handed. My right hand contains the muscle memory of both riding colts' two-handed and training horses through a lot of that middle stage stuff.

So not the beginning, not the end, the middle. And it also contains all the muscle memory from riding one handed. And that's the hand that most frequently the dressage instructor would be saying to me, what is going on with your right hand? I would look down at my right hand and I'd say, I'm not sure, because the funny thing is, when you are unconsciously competent, there is a bit of autopilot going on. And what was happening to me was I was concentrating so hard on everything that they were telling me to do that I was not aware that my right hand was kind of thinking, well, if the horse won't move, if I go like this, I know I can get the horse to move. And this was not happening in my brain. This was happening in my body. And every time they pointed it out, it made me laugh because in a way, my right hand was correct because that move would make my horse go there. But it was incorrect because that wasn't the method that they wanted me using. And the whole point of learning dressage was being able to stack more and more methods on top of what I can do, and that will come up in another episode. I love having more than one way to accomplish something. So I want to tell you that little story just because sometimes I think people look at a rider like myself and they think, wow, they've got it all figured out.

Oh, yeah. If we switch disciplines, there's challenge that comes along with it because that very same muscle memory or unconscious competency can actually kind of work against you a little bit there. And I think that might help some of you recognize that that's OK. I mean, I was laughing at my own right hand. That was, you know, doing whatever it was doing on its own. And I thought it was kind of funny. So take-up that, you know, next time you run into that issue during a lesson, because really sometimes when people are in an earlier stage and they're just breaking habits that they had. So maybe you grew up trail riding like I did, and you had habits that you just invented on your own out there in the woods with no instructor. When that happens and you have to go break those habits, the biggest thing is don't start condemning yourself. Don't start beating yourself up mentally because it's not needed and it's not helpful. It's actually gonna be painful and help hold you back. Instead of move you forward. I'm gonna close by reading one excerpt from an email that I got from Ann because I think that it really will help you see where this fits in. Hi, Stacey. This email really hits home. When I was a young girl, I used to volunteer at a local stable.

I wasn't a very good writer, so I spent much time cleaning stalls, lunging horses and hanging around. Now 60 years old, I'm thinking of taking beginning writing classes, consciously incompetent. I'm a little nervous about getting hurt and know that the horse will feel it too. Any recommendations? Thanks. And. Yes. And I think that it is amazing that you are gonna step back up and you're gonna go out here and do this, because that's great for you to continue following something that you've had a passion for such a long time to do. And I think you just need to find an instructor that you can be very open and honest with. You can say I'm a little nervous, I'm a little worried about getting hurt. And I'm thinking that the horse is gonna feel it, too. And if you find the right instructor, they're going to be receiving of that. They're going to say, I can understand why you might be nervous. Here's why this horse is a good candidate. Here are the steps we're going to take that are going to reduce the risk of you getting hurt. And that's when, you know, you've found a riding instructor that is the right fit for you when you feel that you can be that open and that you aren't made fun of for being that open. I admit it's a risk to be that open.

But if you have an instructor that shamed you or makes you feel bad for having this feeling, then that's a great sign that you're in the wrong place. And that was a great thing for you to learn because you can go find a better place.

Guys, thanks so much for joining me today. If you're enjoying this podcast, please consider sharing it with a friend. And I'll talk to you on the next episode. Thanks.

If you enjoy listening to Stacie's podcast, please visit Stacy Westfall dot com for articles, videos and tips to help you and your horse succeed.

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